Episode 309 Nascence
by NovelT
Summary: I plan on being great all by myself, Lex Luthor once proclaimed to ex-flame Victoria Harwick. But he has also always understood that to become a legend, one needs to master the sharpest swords of all... people. Lex/other friendship.
1. Notes

**Nascence**

**Intro**

"I plan on being great all by myself," Lex Luthor once proclaimed to ex-flame Victoria Harwick. But he has also always understood that to become a legend, one needs to master the sharpest swords of all -- people. So he watches, he weaves, and on rare occasions he snatches an rare eaglet to be honed into a weapon loyal only to him.

But what happens when a move, Lionel against Lex, forces a premature show of his hand?

This is a Lex/other friendship retake of the season three episode _Asylum_. Note that "friendship" is always a questionable word with regards to a Luthor. The storyline grafts on somewhere near the end of the episode _Shattered_, after Lex confronts Lionel and before he takes off to hunt down Morgan Edge. It will not make sense unless you have seen _Shattered_, and it is recommended to watch _Asylum_ as well -- if nothing else because of the superb acting.

Insert standard disclaimers for borrowing the concept of Smallville and its inhabitants.

* * *

**Author's Notes**

I have a love-hate relationship with Smallville the TV series, so do forgive (or ignore) this rant. Due to this internal tug-of-war I have watched nothing past mid-season three; please keep in mind that the following and this story assumes only history up to Smallville 2003. If the state of affairs have changed in seasons four and above, I would be thrilled to be notified so that it may coax me back to watching the rest of the series.

That said, the one thing I consider as exceptionally well done is the Luthor complex. Lex and Lionel are the most intriguing villains I have had the pleasure to meet. They are personable, each thread of their character flaws easy to identify with, yet twisted into such magnificent knots that one wonders if there is beginning or end. These are no run-of-the-mill psychopaths, but human beings that we may be not too surprised to see walking down our streets. Their terrible beauty lie in how their actions can so easily be justified.

The major problem I have with the series is its terrible take on female roles. Lana Lang is the quintessential victim, sweet and "good" but without the strength and/or power to stand by her alleged convictions. Still, I do not dislike her so much as I dislike the emphasis placed upon her value to the world in general, though I suppose there's no arguing matters of the heart so I will not critique her role as the sum of Clark Kent's world. Martha Kent is similarly pleasant but just as ineffective, mostly content to let her husband be "the man of the family" at least in public, though her private opinions sometimes differ.

Chloe Sullivan is by far the most interesting female in the series, yet receives so little screen time that she is almost a mere prop device to magic away the 99 hard work that is necessary in order for Clark Kent to whiz by and saves the day. Her plights throughout the episodes all but blazes in huge kryptonite-green letters: curiosity and dedication are Very Bad Traits, and will only earn you hatred from your friends, disregard from your peers, and an eventual Horrible Fate. I see that we are a generation of cynics, with the lowest possible expectations for intelligence within our teen population, but please! It is only dichotic to have a triumph-of-the-hero type saga and yet disparage all less-flashy forms of heroism.

So, what does this leave us with? Glossy, manipulative beauty queens whose sole strategies are to use their feminine wiles to charm livings off the nearest eligible male... extra effort for persons named Lex Luthor?

Yikes. And to think that I really don't care to spend much time on the feminist soapbox.

With that as context, let's steer a little closer back to the point. Ordinarily, I would never even consider writing an "insert wish-fulfillment character" type of story, but we've all been there and done those things we vowed never to do. The season three episodes _Shattered_ and _Asylum_ were feats of acting by Michael Rosenbaum that left me deeply and thoroughly disturbed, and this change-of-history piece just upped and wrote itself. It is a retake of _Asylum_ with an additional, non-decorative body. It does not follow the Asylum storyline, but is a "what could have happened" in an alternate universe where _she_ (yup, you guessed it) existed.

Permit me a few words on the choice of the mystery female. She is not an average Jane, for I must confess some irritation at the plethora of average females in Smallville when the male cast is so much more substantial. The other reason is that I wanted her in a position to address another grossly-mistreated aspect of Smallville: science. I am not insisting that the twenty-first century laws of physics be accounted for -- here be aliens, after all, and we all know that our theories are incomplete. But I do feel that there should have been more scientific incredulity over Smallville phenomena than is revealed by the series. As a biochemistry graduate who nearly went on to get a PhD., it is inconceivable to me that Lex Luthor had not packed more scientific muscle than the wayward and inevitably mad-or-rotten persons that pop up once in a while.

Hence "she" was born, most assuredly not from the convenience of kryptonite. The rest, I hope you will read.


	2. Prologue

**Nascence -- Prologue**

**Excelsior Academy, 1996**

It is a plush room, beautifully appointed for those ten-second waits before the topic of the day is ushered into the Principal's office. The walls are rich cream, trimmed with oak paneling. The couches are red velvet spread across more oak, thick, comfortable, and rarely graced by parental posteriors (it is scandalous to keep Excelsior parents waiting). A small glass table adorns one corner like a punctuation mark.

The outer door -- frosted glass -- swings open. The carpeting absorbs all footfalls, but there is plenty to compensate the senses. Rustling, leather on silk. Tang of cigarettes and too much cologne. Jangling keys and other accessories to fashion. And, of course, the discontent voices of five boys in the doldrums between child and adulthood.

Only at Excelsior Academy would such and such have been escorted in by two well-muscled and lethally professional security guards.

It is an unusually busy day at "prude central", as the office is "fondly" referred to by the masses it governs. The inner door remains shut, vaguely humanoid-shapes visible behind the intervening glass. Two of the boys drop onto a couch, legs sprawled lazily across the floor. A tall, blond boy prowls to the front of the room, trailed closely by another. The last boy props himself on the wall near the exit, set apart from the rest by something at once more and yet less subtle than the cap on his head.

Four pairs of eyes parrot the blond's movements as he circles. The interest is a figure more properly attired than them, neat navy-blue skirt and blazer over crisp white shirt. Hair that is an undecided shade of brown -- possibly "honey" -- lies caught up in a plain ponytail. Her eyes are sheltered by lashes and focused on the crystal decanter at the table. She stands, arms folded across her chest, not moving, not fidgeting, and seemingly not aware of the additions to her surroundings.

A low whistle passes the blond boy's lips. "Gee boys, now here's a little something we only get to see in magazines around here."

"Nah," his dark-haired companion drawls, superior in his recognition of who she is. "It's just charity girl. I go for _women_, myself."

The noise finally startles her out of reverie. Her eyes fly up, wide and startled. They are brown with a tendency to amber, a shade close to her hair. She takes a step back, then another, obviously uncomfortable with the others' proximity. Her breath quickens, but she does not speak.

"Don't talk much, does she?" one of the boys on the couch calls out.

"Trust me," his seat-mate says with an air of worldly knowledge, "they're much better when they're shut up. The mouth part, anyway."

Something flashes in the girl's eyes, but her voice is an evenly modulated mezzo-soprano as she nods towards the Principal's door. "I'm here to ask about Duncan."

A sudden silence falls.

"Duncan Allenmeyer?" she presses, though it is obvious that they have already filled in that blank. "He hasn't been replying my letters."

A few weeks past, they would have teased her about "letters", most especially the kind written to one Duncan Allenmeyer, scholarship student and all-round poor sap. Now they are only quiet, until one of them blurts a harsh, "He's dead."

Both her brows rise. There is no belief in her face, only a skeptical "yeah right, now tell me the truth".

The boys do not speak.

She gasps, then tightens her arms about her waist. "What, what happened?"

The blond shrugs one shoulder. "Ask Alexander the Bald. He killed him."

Her frown is uncomprehending. The boys turn, almost synchronously, to stare at the figure near the door. The look in her eyes twists from confusion to shock, shock to horror. The capped boy remains frozen, though his hand twitches with the effort to look away.

"L-Lex Luthor? Duncan writes-- used to write me about you. You, you are, were, his best friend."


	3. Chapter 1

**Nascence -- Chapter One**

The large LCD screen displayed a collage of text in multiple open windows, but it was highly doubtful that the woman saw any of it. Her head was in her hands, her elbows propped before the keyboard, the palm of her hands sheltering her eyes. The end of a ponytail of honey-brown hair tickled the base of her neck.

There was work asking to be done, of course. But sometimes you just had to take a step back, defocus, and tan the big picture. Equations and hypotheses and chains of logic decorated the dark behind her closed eyelids, but she did not attempt to pull any of them into clearer definition. Sometimes, it was nice to just listen with the roar of the waves.

"D."

She jumped almost out of her chair when the harsh whisper sounded by her ear, but was saved from an ungraceful introduction to the floor by a hand steadying her upper arm. Instinctively she backed up, unused to being manhandled, only to gasp at the sight of her accoster.

His blue shirt was untucked, tails bunched haphazardly over his lap as he crouched before her. A bruising gash decorated the space above his right eye. But what shocked her the most was the wild glitter of blue in his eyes, the pant in his breath. As if he had just ran a mile, maybe two, rather than the few hundred steps from the building entrance to her lab.

"L! You look like... uhm, date with a psychopath?"

Lex Luthor, currently not-so-impeccable businessman, thrust a crumpled slip of paper in what was vaguely her direction. "I need you to check this out," he demanded, still in stage whisper.

It was an address. Lex had teams of security people for such affairs. She was good with computers, but contrary to popular opinion, coding simulations did not vastly improve one's espionage skills. The man's appearance and yesterday's incommunicado made it clear that this was no time for a lengthy interrogation, but still: "Context required, L."

"Just look it up, dammit!"

Lex Luthor did not, as a rule, raise his voice. Nor did he make illogical demands. He most certainly did not swear at her.

"I'm a physicist, not an oracle," she snapped back, though more confused than angry. "You have to tell me what to look for."

He made an impatient sound, whirled up (rather drunkenly, despite the taint of alcohol), began to pace. "My father claims that's where Morgan Edge is. I need to know it checks out. I'm not so _stupid_ that I'm going to jump riiight into one of _his_ traps!"

The name was unfamiliar to her, but then most were. The Luthor connection however reminded her of avenues she had carefully eked in LuthorCorp servers months past. She had forgotten to mention them to Lex, and sensed that now was not opportune timing. Mind already flooding with ideas, she simply started typing into her computer, fingers flying with familiar speed. One little corner of her sensibilities tried not to let his behavior translate into her anxiety.

"It's a property owned by Invis Consolidated," she reported, simultaneously scanning through the scant data on one Morgan Edge, possible mob-kingpin. "Small company, I think, but you should know. Yet it's in the LuthorCorp databases, a bit of a red flag, huh? I'll bet that Invis is a front. Here, the satellite shot looks like a house, a villa of some sort. Talk to me, L. What's going on?"

He had one hand on the back of her chair, the other planted on the table close to her left. His breathing had not slowed, and the atypical invasion of her personal space was beyond unnerving. "You're better off not knowing," he grated, heart-thumpingly close to her ear.

Half a turn brought her narrowed eyes upon his face. Lex reached for the slip of paper, but she was faster. "I'll drive."

"The hell you will. Don't try to play hero, D. It's out of your league."

She stood up, wrenching away to go for her keys before it occurred to him to do the same. "You're in no condition to sit behind a wheel, and your transport isn't exactly inconspicuous."

Lex followed her out, but overtook and began to wind an obscure route that she had not known could lead to an exit. "Do you think I'm an idiot?" he snarled without looking at her. "I didn't get here by porche."

"That much is obvious." His temper rubbed against her usually placid own, and sparks crackled over her words. "But since when did a stolen car count as inconspicuous?"

There were no more protests. The ease of his acquiescence terrified her.

* * *

There was time aplenty and more for her to ponder every twist in the chain of events as they raced at indecent speed towards the letters on that little slip of paper. Lex, almost certainly drugged. Lex, hunting down Big Brother. Lex, getting shot at. Lex, confronting daddy dearest. 

No amount of exaggeration could ever peg Lex Luthor as the open and talkative type, yet here he was spilling to her a trail of conspiracy and wrongdoing worthy of a blockbuster. This volatile version of Lex frightened her at a level that was almost visceral, a hollow cramp in the insides of her internals. Scenarios spun in her mind like rampant cotton candy, sticky little threads of dubious origin and even more uncertain destiny. She was glad she usually forwent lunch.

She did not follow him into the villa. She would only have been the albatross about his neck, a lucky charm for certain demise. She sat in her car and gripped the steering with palms made slick with sweat, and wondered how she had gotten to a stage where she would not put Lionel Luther past cannibalizing his own children.

Actually, she was pretty certain that he _did_, in a psychological sense.

When the gunning of a car upped her present dosage of adrenaline, she drove out of the trees with a brashness born from sitting on pins. When she saw Lex wobbling clear in the path of an oncoming sedan, the color of which she could never after that remember, she got out and began to run. What she had hoped to accomplish with the action was never to be known. A blur swept the man aside and took the brunt of the impact.

She could have reasoned away the blurring -- sweat in her eyes, perhaps. She could not ignore the tow-headed, brown-jacketed figure who straightened up from the aftermath, then pried the wrecked car apart as if shelling a recalcitrant nut.

Impossible, her brain insisted. Even if the dark-haired man had been made of diamond, he should at the very least have slid along the ground. Newton's third law, action implies reaction, required it. Her steps trickled to a stumbling halt from the sheer shock factor. As if from a distance, she heard Lex speak. Something regarding "Clark" and "not human".

Clark. Clark Kent. Of course.

Her legs were still not taking orders from her brain when he began to make his way towards her, intent on asking if she had seen the same. Belatedly she ran to help him up, though encumbered by her inability to stop staring at the other person.

There was blood on Clark's face, an out-of-place red splotch on the "indestructible" poster-boy image.

She heard cars at the same time as when she realized that uprighting a 6-foot-tall man, with him more distracted than cooperative, was nothing like towing groceries (even if she tended to be the five-bags-per-go type). "Help me!" she snapped at the boy. This was certainly a time when they do _not_ serve who stand and stare.

More seconds were wasted by his indecision, but when Clark rallied, he more than made up for it. Somehow he managed to carry the both of them towards her CUV, which was just as well because she could never have kept up. Human beings were not made to navigate thirty feet in a fraction of a second.

Funny, how had she known that? Memory claimed that they had moved at a fast but hardly abnormal pace.

She almost fumbled the keys as she tried to insert them in the ignition. Every single road law had flown from her mind since the start of the adventure, leaving her other thoughts to rattle around at nauseating speed. Lex stared out of the back window until the wrecked car could no longer be seen, then turned his sights to the other person in the back seat.

Clark made vague uncomfortable noises throughout the journey. She did not speak. Lex Luther was chatty enough for all three of them.


	4. Chapter 2

**Nascence -- Chapter Two**

"Mr. and Mrs. Kent. I'm Dr. Dilys Chase, one of Mr. Luthor's employees." The words rattled out reasonably like how Dilys had practiced them, over and over in the privacy of her mind on their journey to the Kent farm. She was not usually one for titles, but if ever there was a time when she needed every ounce of credibility she could milk, this was it.

The ruggedly handsome farmer smiled, a polite gesture and exactly no more. Martha Kent's greeting was a tad more warm, but she remained in the crook of her husband's arm and seemed content to let him take the lead. Clark stood a little ways between Dilys and his parents, looking like he was one neuron away from shuffling his feet. A full three quarters of all outcomes she imagined involved something like "sorry, but this is really somebody else's problem." They did not trust her, and one-and-a-half of the threesome fully distrusted Lex.

Dilys could not help throwing anxious little glances out of the corner of her eye to where Lex Luthor sat -- sprawled, rather -- in the backseat of her tan-colored car (tan is good for dust concealment; she must consider a paper about that some day). She had removed the keys from the ignition, and was standing a scant foot away, but did not put it past him to be capable of hot-wiring and hijacking should he so take fancy. Still, the man seemed placid enough for the moment, head lolled back, throat exposed, with the occasional mumble and laugh to himself. Within Dilys' vast inexperience of such matters she would rate his behavior as drunk. She thought, with no pretense to sufficient knowledge, that hallucinogens plus adrenaline equals some simile of intoxication.

Jonathan cleared his throat, and exchanged another uneasy glance with his son. Or, he would have if the latter had not been staring fearfully at the two non-Kents. Instead his glance merely flickered for a moment over the teenager before gracing her again. "Well, Dr. Chase, about Lex's... condition..." He seemed to expect her to continue.

"Oh," Dilys fumbled a little, trying to pin down at least one or two of the many thoughts zipping about her brain. "I'm not a doctor. Medical doctor, that is. I mean, I have a PhD. in physics. Just one of the LexCorp lab rats. And, uh, please call me Dilys."

Jonathan did not appear significantly less suspicious. "Dilys," he humored her, then continued with the bluntness of conviction, "Lex needs professional help."

"Dad, I don't think we can trust Lionel Luthor in this. He's probably the one who had Lex drugged in the first place."

Dilys took a deep breath. "Unfortunately I have to agree with your son, Mr. Kent. Lex believes that his father is, uh, trying to silence him."

From the hard look in Jonathan's eyes, she surmised that the young Luthor was not high on his list of favorite persons. "Lex is suffering from paranoid delusions," he said firmly. "His actions have already put Lana in intensive care. We can't risk--"

"I'm not asking you to shelter him, Mr. Kent. It wouldn't be safe for anybody, least of all Lex." She tried another breath. It was as un-fortifying as the last, despite doing a fine job along the way of hyperventilation. The paths before her constricted, side-lanes dwindling to brittle twigs that snapped and stripped off the main branch as she uttered her decision. "We're going to have to go away for a few days, until the drugs work out of his system."

The enormity of what she heard herself suggesting boggled Dilys. Going on the run with one semi-coherent and fully dangerous Lex Luthor. Caretaker: Dilys Chase, non-athlete, non-worldly, pretty much non-anything except single-minded scientist and recently occasional hacker. The landscape of consequences whirled dizzyingly, and she had to tightly grip the branch she had climbed out on to stop from toppling into the abyss.

"You couldn't possibly take care of Lex on your own, Dilys," Jonathan reinforced her doubts. "He's been known to get violent--"

"I won't hurt D. She's my friend."

Four pairs of eyes shot immediately towards the man behind the car window. An alarmingly large smile graced his face.

"I know you won't, L," Dilys returned softly. There was definitely something peculiar about how Lex was staring at her, a look she had never seen and for which no amount of thinking could not develop an analogy. A blush threatened when she recalled that they had company. "Do you know a place where we could hide out for a few days?"

Lex shut his eyes, then slammed a hand into the car door. She couldn't help the jump, but hoped that the pounding of her heart remained safely within her privacy. "Can't trust _anyone_!" he bellowed with abrupt fury. "Dad can and has probably bought out every last damned soul on this planet."

Dilys neither groaned nor stomped her foot, but it was a close call. She ran her finger over the edge of the car window, worrying the dark rubber lining. More details bombarded her mind, fading mercifully to background when she ran through some focusing exercises. It had been a long time since she'd had to consciously do such a thing. "Fine. Okay. When in doubt, improvise--"

In a flash that nobody anticipated, Lex's hand shot out and clamped about her wrist. His eyes stared at her with cutting mistrust, both bloodshot and storm-blue. "How do I know I can trust _you_? How do I know my father hasn't gotten to you as well?"

Her wrist hurt. "Oh, of course!" she found her lips exclaiming of their own accord. "How could I possibly have forgotten to mention that Luthor senior has had me cased since day one, with promises of bigger and shinier toys than Luthor junior can provide? Want to know the real secret though? Actually I'm undercover FBI, and have been working for half a decade to uncover the grand Luthor plan for world domination."

A choked sound made her turn from glaring at the disheveled man in the car to the family outside. Martha and Jonathan Kent were exchanging a glance, apparently trying to decide which of their unwanted visitors held more shares of the stock called insanity. Clark Kent darted glances all around at what must have been dizzying pace, though one should never assume that maybe-non-humans were susceptible to dizzy. The sound may have been the work of any of them. Dilys' swan-song was a spectacular rendition of crimson.

The young billionaire's laugh tolled like bells in the quiet country day. Clark seemed bemused but desperately optimistic -- laughter heralded good things, right? Jonathan and Martha looked more anxious by the minute.

Dilys sighed. She missed the comfort of her daily routine, to work, back from work, sleep, insomnia, sleep. It was about the time of day when Lex usually showed up at her office if he was in town, armed with paperwork and lunch.

_At the end of that first week, one of the most awkward in her life, Dilys decides that there should be an "adequate working conditions" clause to her contract._

_"I assure you Mr. Luthor, breathing down my neck -- or across the table, as it is -- will not increase my productivity. Haven't you heard that even in quantum physics, watched pots don't boil? Well, extremely nervous watched pots--"_

_A half-sided smile curls his lips as he leans back and studies her. A trick of lighting has his eyes a-gleam like blue diamond. His casual, almost lazy pose highlights the cricks her back has accrued from a stiffly upright posture. "And I assure you Ms. Chase," he interrupts, "that my incentives for being here have nothing to do with your job performance. Let's just put this down as an experiment in space-sharing, shall we?"_

_Lex Luthor is a question mark with a collar and tie on it, but Dilys does not need all her brain cells to deduce that it is no request, despite the phrasing._

Years later, why her boss and the heir to the Luthor empire chose to camp out in her (admittedly much-too spacious) office eluded her still. Perhaps he felt that her... condition required monitoring. It was, embarrassingly and frustratingly, true enough.

A rough shake of her arm divorced memory from reality. Though feverish, Lex's gaze was as piercing as ever, his diction as cutting. "Now's the time for action, not dreamery, Ms. Chase."

"Of, of course, yes." Dilys picked at the most promising thread. "Clark, would you, perhaps Lex could borrow a few day's worth of clothes? I'll stop by my place to grab other necessities, but it's probably not the best time to raid the castle for Lex's things right now."

"Sure--"

"Actually," Martha cut in, "I'll go pack some of Jonathan's things. I'm sure they'll fit much better, and Jonathan doesn't mind."

"Sure." This from Jonathan Kent, who nevertheless looked rather like he _did_ mind, thank-you-very-much.

"Listen," Clark spoke into the silence after his mother left. "About what you saw..."

"Saw?" Jonathan's voice was definitely, guardedly hostile.

"That was some adoption agency you went to, Mr. Kent," Lex piped up. "So far Clark has survived being run into by two speeding cars, and pulled one apart with his bare hands. I'd like to know what the other kids can do. You could try to tell me it's just from all this healthy farm living, but that would have to be a farm on some other planet."

Father and son exchanged a long look. Clark's expression was sheepish. Jonathan's was the wrong side of thundery.

"I must know how you defy the laws of inertia, Clark," Dilys eagerly prattled. "Why weren't you pushed from the spot by the impact? And even if your body is impervious to harm, why weren't your clothes shredded? I'm more inclined to think that your body generates some sort of protective field; come to think of it, that would explain quite a few other things. And the speeding! It seems to be some sort of time dilation effect, assuming that relativity is still an applicable theory." She frowned at another detail, not noticing that her audience, bar one transfixed Lex Luthor, were growing ever more agitated. "Were you hurt? I don't understand how that could have happened, but you still have some blood on your face."

"Morgan Edge punched him with a meteorite rosary," Lex revealed, completely out-of-character even before he punctuated the statement with a wondering chuckle.

"Meteorites? They harm Clark?" The strands of her thought were almost visible to Dilys, some twining together, reinforced to glowing certitude, others neglected until they faded from existence. "Fascinating. They do emit some very strange radiation, I wonder if--"

"Ms. Chase, Dilys!" Jonathan Kent was livid. "This is _my son_ you're babbling on about like some kind of, of--" His jaw clenched, hard, and he had advanced until blatantly in her personal space. She took an instinctive step back, only to have her back connect with the car. "You keep your nose and everything else out of our business, or--"

"Dad!"

"Jonathan!"

Lex rose abruptly and thrust his upper body halfway through the open window, hands grabbing the front of Jonathan's shirt. "Don't you--"

Dilys thought it wise to intervene before the farmer added a few more bruises to her employer's already spectacular collection. Physically she interposed herself between the two men -- or at least that was the intention. The execution resulted in her plastered over the car door, preempting (she hoped) any bright ideas by Lex of exiting, and as far away from the irate Kent as she could get.

"I apologize, Mr. Kent, and now is obviously not the time to have this debate. We should get going."

He glared at her for another minute. It would be wrong to say that Dilys had never had someone look at her with such a degree of antipathy, because she had and worse, but it had been many years since she had taken notice.

"Fine. Get out of my land. But just you remember that there's no way in hell I'm going to let anything happen to my family."

"Jonathan!" Martha's disapproval was obvious and she came to stand between her husband and Dilys. "This is enough for one day. Now you and Lex just try to remain civil for a minute and let me talk to Dilys, okay?"

It was not a question. The older woman took Dilys by the elbow, walking several feet away so they could speak in undertones. Her eyes were concerned, motherly. "Are you sure you want to do this, honey?"

"Seeing possibilities is my curse, Mrs. Kent. I am almost never sure of anything."

"We should take Lex to a hospital. He needs psychiatric care."

The young woman shook her head. "Lex has more issues than the Daily Planet, but he's only slightly less sane than the rest of the world." Her lips quirked in a brief moment of genuine humor, then rapidly flattened. "I can't let Lionel Luthor get his hands on Lex, not when he is so... vulnerable."

"You care a lot for him, don't you?" Martha's voice softened with sympathy. "Are you two...?"

"Us?" Dilys was confused, then laughed from the sheer absurdity of the concept. The sound may have been one iota hysterical, but she had always believed in the power of denial. "No, nothing like that. I really am just an employee. And I, well, I've sort of grown used to his company."

A gentle hand clasped her shoulder. She was usually not a fan of bodily contact, but Martha made it feel comfortable. "But will you be able to handle staying alone with a man you don't know that much about? You must consider that Lex is not in, ah, full control of himself."

Dilys wrapped her arms around her waist, but dredged up a smile that was just a tad crooked. "Oh? Oh! Er, _that_ is the last thing on my worry list, don't worry! I happen to be safely the opposite of Lex Luthor's 'type'."

"Killer brunettes?"

The smile graduated into a grin, and Dilys was surprised by a jolt of liking for this hidden facet of the sweet-mannered Martha Kent. "Something like that," she acknowledged. "Though he usually harvests them when they're only mildly sociopathic."

Martha sighed, but gave a half-smile and her shoulder a squeeze before disengaging.

"Thank you for your concern, Mrs. Kent," Dilys said, and meant it, "but don't worry too much. Guess this is as good a time as any to practice those billionaire-sitting skills. Besides, there are any number of proverbs about necessity and invention."

* * *

"I should have gone with him, Chloe." 

Deciding that the statement did not require a reply any more than the dozen variations-on-theme she had been subjected to in the past hour, Chloe Sullivan, proto-journalist, continued tapping and scrolling on the Smallville Torch computer.

"I mean, we don't even know who this Dilys Chase really is. I've never heard Lex mention her, but it was like, well, like they knew each other quite well. Yet she told mom that she's 'just an employee'. And even if she is who she says she is, she's just going to get hurt or worse. You know, well I know, how Lex gets when he's--"

"Aha!" Chloe swung around long enough to flash a triumphant grin that stopped her pacing friend in his literal tracks, then resumed scanning the contents of the computer monitor. "I think I have some tidbits that just might interest you, Clark Kent."

He was behind her shoulder so fast, she idly wondered if he was possessed of some kind of super-speed. She ran a guiding finger down the lines of text.

"Doctor Dilys Chase. Age twenty-three -- hmm, a couple of months younger than Lex, only. Joint PhD. in Physics and Mathematics, Princeton University." She shook her head, the spiky tips of her hair brushing across her neck. "This gal has an I.Q. of one hundred and ninety-two, Clark. She may be one of Lex's little helpers, but I highly doubt if Dr. Chase has ever been 'just' anything."

"So she's a genius? She was going on about-- uh, well, she was giving us a whole science speech for a while. Ahem. Nothing relevant."

Chloe's eyes narrowed, but she was well acquainted with the Clark Wall of Mystery. The way around it had always been to let him think he'd gotten away with it, then spring a casual mention or two later in the conversation. "She's not just a genius, Clark," the reporter expounded, waving a hand for emphasis. "Lex has genius-level I.Q. One hundred ninety-two is pretty close to being off the charts."

"So you think she's working for Lex on some top-secret project?"

"Do you even have to ask? And the very fact that she's here in Smallville narrows it down pretty much, doncha think?"

"I don't know, Chloe. There hasn't been very many secret high-tech labs around here."

"I hope you don't need a dictionary for the definition of 'secret', Clark. After all, you are my Editor-in-chief."

He made a disgruntled sound. "Alright, alright. What else have you got?"

Chloe frowned at the screen, which sported a photo of the topic of conversation. It was a typically unflattering driver's license shot, but even so it was clear that Dilys Chase was only ordinary as far as appearances went. Brown hair with a tint of gold, caught in a strict ponytail. Brown eyes, straight mouth. High cheekbones, square-ish jaw. She wore no visible makeup, and in her plain cardigan could have melted into the Smallville High "anonymous" crowd without the slightest effort.

"Hmm. Lex sure wasted no time hiring her. Publications by one D. Chase stopped right after her thesis defense, a few months after Lex took up management of the Smallville plant, actually. Ten bucks says that it's when he whisked her into some version of Level 3, never to be seen by the academic community ever again."

"That's it? I don't know, there has to be more to the story. I mean, they had nicknames for each other and everything."

Chloe's brows rose above the level of her bangs. "Well, it can't have been during highschool. Lex went to Excelsior Academy, an all-boys private school. Dr. Chase went to Quint Gardens Girl's School on a scholarship. They're both these posh places the bluest of bluebloods send their children to, but I can't imagine young, playboy Lex Luthor slipping notes across the fence to our girl geek-wonder, can you? Plus she graduated early, perfect attendance."

"Maybe they got into contact during university."

"Maybe. But between finishing undergrad work in under two years, and getting two PhDs in the remaining, I don't see how she could've stepped one foot out of her room unless it's to go to class."

Clark ran a hand through his already-tousled hair. Before he could come up with another hypothesis, Chloe made a sound of intrigue that had him peering some more over her shoulder. "Chloe? Do I want to know how you got a hold of Dr. Chase's psychological profile?"

She grinned toothily and quipped, "Don't ask me no questions." Refocusing, she verbalized the highlights. "Reclusive, lack of significant social connections. Hmm, must be a Mensa prerequisite... though there are some in-triiig-uing hints about neglect during the 'formative years'. And here -- wow. This is one gal who shouldn't have been issued a driver's license. Wonder if our Mr. Luthor had a hand in that."

"'Dissociative episodes'?" Clark read.

"Sounds like the good doctor spaces out once in a while."

"I _knew_ I should have gone with Lex!"

Chloe blew a chunk of hair out of her eyes, and targeted him with a look of pure exasperation. "While we all know you have this need to be everybody's hero, Clark Kent, I have to go with Dr. Chase on this one. I mean, hello? What do you think Lionel Luthor would have done to your parents if you'd gone incommunicado the same time Luthor junior was at large? You might as well put a banner up on the school compound saying 'Clark Kent, aid and abetting Lex Luthor'."

"How do you know Lionel won't figure out the same about Dr. Chase?"

"I don't, but for his own no doubt nefarious reasons Lex seems to have kept their 'relationship', whatever species of creature that may be, pretty hush-hush. He also gave Dr. Chase a work contract that makes me green with envy. Basically she can work at any LexCorp lab, at home, or in the middle of a cornfield if that takes her fancy. She's been logging regular hours, location unknown, but I'll say it won't raise very many eyebrows if she doesn't show up for a few days."

"Chloe, none of this is making me feel any better about what's going on with her and Lex."

Chloe shrugged. "With Lex Luthor, who knows? Let's face it, Smallville's resident rich-and-famous runs in a pretty weird cabal. He's even friends with Clark Kent, farmboy extraordi-- hey, hands off the hair!"

Clark grinned, but retracted his arm only after ruffling the blond mop the way he knew was guaranteed to irk its owner.


	5. Chapter 3

**Nascence -- Chapter Three**

**D. Chase. Day 1.**

Scientists are compulsive log-keepers. There's nothing quite like typing out one's thoughts to solidify them, and in my case I've always needed all the help I can get to keep from drowning in the multiverse of possibilities that my mind sees for every-- I digress. Digression bad. The point, D, the point.

This is to be a chronicle of L's trip down one custom-made, horror-strewn rabbit hole. I sat for two minutes before deciding to call it a "trip". "Trip" has no innate negative connotations. "Trip" implies an eventual return. I will not call it a "descent", though by all accounts this has been some time in the making. I have observed that he had been less collected, less sharp of late, but after the Helen affair I have been at a loss for re-establishing a baseline for "normal" L. Even before the outside forces of his marriage and disappearance, the Lex Luthor phenomenon is a study of years that I was still far from accomplishing. There are too many unknowns and no equations. I'm a physicist, not a psychiatrist. A psychiatrist would have a field day contemplating that L is quite possibly the only person I have contact enough with to call "friend".

Back to point. I know nothing of even pop psychology, but here I am trying to disentangle a psyche more entangled than photons in a laser. Hence the log: somehow I doubt that L is up to his usual repertoire of discerning conversation. I can imagine that L's friend's reporter friend -- interesting convolution, is it not? -- would beg for such a chance as this. But nobody will ever read this. Nobody can ever read this. I do not know much about the corporate world, and for the bulk of it I simply do not care. I do understand that this journal could be L's ruin.

I told Martha Kent that seeing possibilities is my curse. Not seeing them is a curse as well. I don't know how to help. My mind is blank of what-to-dos, and as a result filling up with useless speculations: what happens if he runs? what happens if he remains like this? what happens if we are caught? what--

Focus, need focus.

I have tried to keep him talking, because L is a man constantly in action. Though intellectual more than physical, the minute he tires of hiding he will make some reckless move that I can not even hope to predict. Not for this off-balance version. I am a physicist. Physicists do not make good manhandlers. I have not forgotten that the reason for our first face-to-face was because L has tendencies towards violence when pushed. End digress.

L spoke, but only about Clark Kent and today's re-definition of "impossible". I consider it a mission impossible accomplished on my very own -- after all, since when has a non-Lionel last bragged that they persuaded Lex Luthor to go against instinct? Alright, so the chemical assistance helped; I figure it's not unfair if it wasn't of my making.

Babble much, D?

It is night now and us in a shabby motel that I think may be halfway between Smallville and Granville. I have a history of misapplying driving directions. Perhaps this will help throw off those people on our tails. When L gets back to lucid, I hope we are still on the face of the map. We must get on the road again tomorrow. Nobody stays long in pit stops such as this. I do not know what level of paranoia is appropriate to this situation., and so am going for "bigger is better". Perhaps we can get adjoining rooms in the psychiatric facility. End digress.

Clark Kent. Clark Kent is a familiar topic for the two of us. It is impossible to do research into the properties of this fluke species of meteorite without running into the human interest factor: all those les miserables who have been exposed and ergo developed an odd assortment of "powers". There seems to be no pattern to the mutations, no repeat, though they do seem to be strangely relevant to each aflictee's personal problems. Kryptonite seems also to affect only creatures with higher brain functions. Question: whoever came up with the moniker "kryptonite"? Krypton is a noble gas, quite nicely established in the modern periodic table. There is no krypton in kryptonite. In fact, that particle accelerator L has some-incredible-how acquired reports some truly odd spectra, matching no known stable element. Hmph.

How? Why? I have told L that a more formal knowledge of medicine would help my understanding by leaps. He said there was no way he'd permit my holing up in medical school especially now that the incidents seem to be escalating... not even if it took me a mere two years to run the course. The boss' recommendation: "delegate". But it frustrates me to have to explain ten points for every quantum of help the medical scientists provide, and I keep feeling that division of labor loses a fine sand of details through the cracks. Note to self: must talk to L about a more satisfactory arrangement. Note to self: must curb tendency to deviate from topic.

L revealed more details about Clark Kent today than I know his lucid self would ever have considered giving me. His previous confidences mostly involved how the teenager must moonlight as a superhero after school's out. Clark Kent is either a missing piece or a red herring in the puzzle; puzzle pieces in the Smallville universe tend to be in both categories. Note to self: must pay more attention to Smallville dramatics. So far, I have: magite mutates human DNA, with the exception of causing non-permanent (I think) damage to one Clark Kent. Ockham's razor: ergo Clark Kent is not human. Insert canned laughter. What are the chances of a non-human being of human appearance?

I have not mentioned my theories to L. He is not in the best form to absorb them, and I do not want future discussions to be biased by what he might or might not have said under unknown influences. I want to go back to my lab and think.

L is sleeping now, or I hope he is. Perhaps he is in a trance, the kind I have worked hard to avoid for years. If this is the price of empathy, I do not want it. Perhaps he is dreaming. I hope not. Perhaps he will wake back to his caustic reserved self tomorrow. There are too many "perhaps" in this paragraph.

**D. Chase. Day 2.**

I am finally beginning to understand: the Life of Dilys Chase may just have been stretched so much, it will never again fit back into her neat little lab. Footnote: Technically, L's lab, but there's more to ownership than scribbles on paper, isn't there? It is not a LuthorCorp lab, at the very least. I don't like Lionel Luthor's idea of attractive retirement plans.

L is not better today. He is worse. I think the Clark Kent novelty factor has worn off enough that the rest of the Luthor drama takes precedence. It seems that Luthorian home life involves formulating lots and lots of outlandish suspicions, to be repeated every hour on the hour. The best time to run is either somewhere mid-morning, or just before the local unfriendly Luthor tries to commit carjack.

With us going a tame sixty miles per hour, L's sense of self-preservation overrode his paranoia and he did not attempt to swan-dive into a concrete angel. L would not make a good angel. Why the crawl? Well, I had no intention of being caught for something so unglamorous as a speeding ticket. It is also good to stretch out the miles in movement. Time passes faster when one is in motion -- Einstein said so. I have never been a fan of burgers, but am not allowed to argue with trucker staple. Burgers are messy and too big to fit into non-magite-mutant mouths. I do not like traveling. I have given up on the map and am now just scavenging the freeways. We may be going in circles. Is that a sound diversionary tactic? I am a physicist, not a tactician. That is L's job.

Incoherent much, D?

Let's revise this in chronological order.

Sometime after the breakfast I am not in a habit of eating, I was jolted out of bed by my computer squawking at volume hundred-percent. A miracle of modern mobile technology lets a person set up one-on-one communication between their laptop and cellphone. It is not a very strong signal, blockable by such things as an opened door. A bit of key-tapping told the machine to scream if it loses the connection. Forget about necessity and invention; this deserves a rating of at least "desperation". Maybe I can pat my own back when my hands stop shaking.

One scenario I had considered involved L smashing my toys before making a grand exit. No points for deducing from these glowy bytes that he didn't get around to the destruction of property. He was too busy ditching the unsolicited sidekick.

Martha Kent had made it painstakingly clear to me that what I am trying to pull off is Lana Lang's stint at Luthor-sitting, with a world less of support. The kindly-meant lecture immediately spawned all species of daymares, none with the option of yours truly riding off into the sunset a dashing hero (though I would have settled for "intact hero", pride optional). But all those counseling sessions have desensitized me to the horror that is the future, and it was easy to nod and agree and go ahead anyway. So it is that forty-eight-plus hours later, I have retroactively filled up twenty-three years' quota of spontaneity, plus borrowed storage from the next several decades.

What type of gloves did Lana don for the care and feeding of one Lex Luthor? I don't know why hindsight has me wondering that now. By all accounts she is a gentle soul who can charm a smile from an ogre. Her tactics are irrelevant for me. I don't do pretty and harmless, just quiet with a dash of awkward. I am not so deluded as to think that I have a chance with soft words and a palmful of sugar.

Perhaps my brain convolutely thought L would think: You only patronize a person you don't respect, or if you have something to hide. Grand solution: I threw myself at him in what must be the least graceful bodily maneuver a Luthor has ever received. I am not a physically brave person, or a very physical person at all, but mind over body, right? And with a mind that many have called unusual, I must have some advantage, right? Right. L swung around, rescuing us both from intimate acquaintance with tarmac, and pinned me to the wall next to the motel wall. I have bruises on my upper arms to match those on my right wrist.

"Go back to your safe little playpen, D. You can't even get around Smallville without a guide. You think you can handle being a fugitive?"

"You don't have two intelligent words to say about anything beyond particles and fields. I don't have the time to hold your hand in the big bad world out here."

"The police are the nicest of the people my father has out looking for me. What do you think you can do, bat them off with big words and multiple degrees? Or do you believe that if you're quiet enough, they'll just not see you and go away?"

"I don't need someone who falls apart whenever she has to so much as take one step away from her daily routine. You are so one-dimensional, I'm regularly surprised that you can stand up at all."

There are large chunks of life, especially the mundane and routine, that my memory bypasses. L's words, the derision in his eyes, are not one of them.

He... it was... focus, D, focus.

I had only one argument ready: "You need a different identity. Everybody is looking for a single young male, hair optional. They won't care about a girl with cash and a... friend."

He hates it, but it is in Luthor genes to be pragmatic. So it was that half and hour later my car still had me in the driver's seat, palms slick about the steering wheel and eyes pulling double duty between the road and the man who was deliberating the hundred ways by which he could snap my neck.

I remember that my long-ago pen-pal and only friend, Duncan Allenmeyer, had been Lex Luthor's best friend.

**D. Chase. Day 3.**

I'm a physicist with a first love of mathematics, not a econo-political giant. Lionel Luthor is out of my league. Lionel Luthor is out of everybody's league -- the few "everybodys" I've heard of from inside my nonexistent social circle. Even his son has a thirty-odd-years disadvantage, though the gap is closing at exponential rate.

L ascribes to his father every atrocity from the death of his mother to the betrayal by his latest wife. The "significant females" theme is not so strange, given that he is trying to put the fear of Lionel Luthor in me. Even at n ( 0) percent out of his mind, nothing Lex Luthor does is not deliberate. He surely revealed more than he had intended though, because L isn't into public dissemination of information. My employment contract, should I ever suffer the patience to comprehend it, is no doubt a study in the fine art of hermetically-sealed confidentiality clauses. This little sabbatical doesn't seem to be very beneficial to either of our mental healths. Now I must wonder if these sessions in the electronic confession booth will have L consider me a threat when he's back to his rationally paranoid self. As opposed to presently irrational paranoia, of course.

I have the vague insight that any other confessor will listen and hear a symptom of blame-everybody-else syndrome. I hear an angry young man pitted against the one man in the world he should have been able to trust, furiously burying a kernel of fear that the man is too skilled a whittler in shaping the "perfect" son. In the quiet lapses between rants, there was a naked emotion on L's typically impassive face that made me ache like none of my own lukewarm attachment to my parents has ever been able to.

My psyche profiles -- and there have been many -- peg me as incapable of deep feelings. L superficially exhibits the same character trait, but I knew for a fact (even before now) that it is just a facade for an undertow of passions. The facade is currently translucent. Perhaps this is why I am camped out in a ratty motel room after another exhausting day-long drive, hunched in a chair that commits multiple ergonomics crimes, straining my eyes with ant-sized font on an LCD screen. Perhaps I wish that standing close enough to the fire will allow me to feel it, see what the fuss is about. Vicarious living. Hmm. Pop psychology is like a hangover without the so-claimed pleasures of intoxication.

I did not intend to write a thesis on the Luthor psyche, but perhaps it is only wise to start an encyclopedia for future reference. I usually obsess like this only over scientific mysteries, but who is to claim that Lex Luthor is not a scientific mystery? The obvious question mark is on how he managed to survive ground zero of The Meteorite impact an incur no significant side-effects. Perhaps there was some kind of "eye of the storm"? Perhaps magite was not an innate composition of the meteor as most think, but rather a byproduct of some long-term reaction with earthly conditions? There is some significance in the fact that it took ten to fifteen years for the effects to manifest, right? Some reason beyond the speed of dissemination?

The rest of the Lex Luthor mystery is more mundane in nature, but not scope. There be dragons in these waters. L may excuse my scientific curiosity, but even my nonexistent people skills are up to the prognosis that he will crucify any attempt at psychoanalyzing him. But I cannot help myself. No true scientist plopped in a front-row seat for one of the most spectacular phenomena of the century could be expected to abstain from observation-hypothesis-theory. L had once set one foot in PhD. level biochemistry -- surely he will understand this need.

Observation 1: L is a better liar than his father. Lionel Luther has not said one word in my presence that did not sound rehearsed and phony. Lex Luthor has mastered an "intrinsic" genuineness that wears on a person's distrust like steady warm rain. He succeeds only because there is a deep running vein of decency in his soul that his father lacks. They both consider it a weakness; or, Lionel has decided it is so, and spent his adult life brainwashing his son to the fact. L has not yet figured out that it is his king on the Luthor chessboard. A seemingly weak piece, yet irreplaceably vital. It is the order parameter that distinguishes Lex from Lionel.

I have not typed a word in a full ten minutes. A horrible realization occupied me: I cannot allow L to defeat his father. Not until he learns the above for himself.

"Allow"? Pure hubris. A Luthor trademark though, so perhaps I can be excused. Note to self: must look up persons with Luthor sympathies.

I am repressing the fact that L has no use for me beyond a few words on the meteor fragment of the week, but no matter. It doesn't matter. I'm a physicist, not a paramour.

* * *

A small sigh escaped Dilys' lips as she shut down the journal program before powering off her laptop. She rose massaging the tendons of a very stiff neck, then swung her arms clockwise, anticlockwise, twisting her body. The crack of her spine was satisfying as it settled into a more comfortable alignment, but her eyes strayed longingly back to the now-quiescent computer. The long, aimless drives were at once both tedious and stressful, miles of unfamiliar country making her anxious for the short trek between her apartment and lab. The writing was a tiny rag of comfort that she had found to wrap around herself. It kept out reality as well as could be expected -- within the familiar single-mindedness of work, all of Lex's words were just words, distant and powerless.

Another sigh, and she turned to walk the few steps from the desk to the bathroom. Her ward had been in there too long, she thought: it must have been an hour, probably more, between all her typing and thinking. At least he had been verbal rather than physical today, though the rambling nature of his monologues were tremendously disturbing. "Normal" Lex Luthor was a scalpel, sharp, precise.

She knocked on the door, knocked again, then finally called out his name. There was only the rush of running water.

Five minutes later, Dilys was thanking providence and makers of cheap motels for doors that failed to lock properly. The shower was running and there was a Lex-sized blob behind the curtain, crouched rather than standing. She called his name a couple more times, before surrendering to the knowledge that all was not well in Lex-land.

Her hand trembled as she tugged the curtain to the side, but her attention was all on the figure sitting cross-legged on the tiles. Lex had always been pale, but the blueness of his blood had always been metaphorical and not his present chilling shade... right? The planes of his face were upturned to the force of the shower, eyes closed. He was utterly, utterly still, crystalline water splintering over his body as if eroding stone. The stray droplets that dampened her clothes were one degree above ice. Her heart began a runaway rhythm.

Fingers fumbled over the tap as Dilys desperately winched it to close. For a few seconds she only stared at the unresponsive figure, mind trapped in useless spinnings of what might happen, what would happen. Fortunately, a last splat of water slapped her back into focus. The trickle down her shirt was almost as chill as the flesh under her palm as she patted Lex's face, timidly, then with greater desperation. He did not seem to so much as breathe.

A slow minute ground by before it occurred to Dilys to turn the shower back on, slowly upping the heat. She laid a palm on his bare, smooth chest, trying to find a pulse as well as track the increasing temperature of flesh. Neither was in evidence, but surely a, well, dead person should have toppled over, shouldn't they?

It felt like her neurons had been transmuted into cotton wool, but she eventually thought to move her fingers to the crook of his neck. Her heart made another nauseating lurch when she thought she felt something slow and shallow -- but moving, moving! She dialed the heat up with her other hand, unwilling to disconnect from the sign of hope.

The water only went a little above lukewarm, and even that began to cool as the reserve ran out. Dilys reluctantly shut it down, trying to convince herself that she had indeed seen Lex's eyes flutter. Grabbing all the towels, she rubbed them furiously over him before embarrassment caught up with and overran fear.

How she relocated him from bath to bed was a blur of clammy skin and screaming muscles. They would both have spectacular bruises to testify on the morrow, but Dilys was too busy counting chickens that did hatch to cry over spilt yolks. Similarly, Lex Luthor was in no condition to register his most graceless tumble into a bed with a woman. She found herself laughing uncontrollably at the thought.

Still hiccuping, Dilys forced herself to get up, punch the antiquated heater up to high, and root through Jonathan Kent's donated clothes for something thick; fortunately, farmers were a practical species. If the size difference made it easier for her to manhandle the tangle of Lex's limbs into the sweater, it was beyond her notice. She balked at underwear, but managed to pull the sweatpants onto him without tearing the waistband. Her fingers were as cold as his skin and about as useful as blocks as she tried to layer socks onto his feet. For a good measure, she sock-ed his hands as well.

Lex had begun to shiver, a promising development according to Dilys' miscellaneous knowledge. She cocooned him in all the blankets and coverlets, then went to strip out of her own frigid clothes for a dryer set. Shivering as much from shock as cold, she wasted some more minutes just standing, hugging herself and fixated on the tremors that ran through her roommate's body. Then she peeled up the covers long enough to slip into the bed, back-to-back.

Dilys had expected to remain awake for a long time, running through the whys of Luthor behavior and how she should have been quicker on the uptake. As it turned out -- after she had snuggled into as palatable a position as possible for two on a single, saggy bed -- her last thought was that all the hype about sharing body heat had better be worth all this discomfort.


	6. Chapter 4

**Nascence -- Chapter Four**

"Chloe, could we _please_ not make this into another one of your crusades?"

The petite blond gave no indication of possessing either ears or eyes -- at least not ones receptive to external stimuli. She continued to pace, head vacillating between the newspaper cutting in her right hand and a computer printout in her left, as if the alliteration allowed her to absorb both at the same time.

"Listen, Clark," she said blithely, gesticulating at the cutting. "'Neosho Rapids' Crime of Neglect'. Can you believe the state actually sued her parents for child abuse? Seems that our local genius spent the first four years of her life all but catatonic because her parents just never noticed that she had special needs. They ran a small grocery, and stuck her in an empty back room all the time because 'she's always such a quiet little thing'. She supposedly didn't speak a single word until she was five, after remedial classes. But the amazing thing was, her teachers reported that she started off with almost adult vocabulary."

Clark readjusted his long limbs, piqued despite himself. "We're all children of working parents, Chloe. I can't imagine that the state won the case."

"Yeah, nope. Mr. and Mrs. Chase were just your garden variety of overworked, and maybe a bit slow on the uptake, but that's what makes this such a tragic story!" Chloe paused for a second to wave the printout at him, only to resume pacing in the next. "All later evaluations report that Dilys required constant and complex stimuli to occupy her mind. That back room must have been like a sensory deprivation tank to someone like her. It was pure luck that a new doctor came to town and asked to see all the children, or she'd have turned out even more screwed up than she was for years."

This was none other than the woman Clark had let cart off his friend Lex. The boy frowned. "Are you saying that she's dangerous?"

Chloe snorted. "To herself, probably. You know how babies need to bond with their parents especially in the first few years, in order to develop socially and emotionally? Well our good doctor didn't quite grow up to become a psychopath, but she does have problems 'connecting' with people according to her profile. Huh, talk about a chronic case of 'cold fish'."

The boy frowned, his Kent-cultivated need to believe the best of everybody standing up in protest. "I dunno... she seemed pretty normal. Mom thought she was nice."

The pacing stopped for Chloe to prop her hands on her hips and produce a dramatic roll of eyes. "Clark, 'nice' is what you call little old ladies who haven't seen action since the Vietnam War. Come to think of it, one of those cliched bridge parties would probably constitute excitement in Dr. Chase's life. 'Patient is excessively dependent on daily routine, to the extreme of suffering panic attacks when placed in novel situations'. This was written almost a decade ago, but you've got to wonder--"

"Chloe--"

"Fine, fine, don't believe me, but mark my words: there's not a single soul who has anything to say about our good doctor beyond 'brilliant, but I don't really know much about Dilys'. That girl has a terminally empty social calendar. It's incredible that she ever made a blip on Lex Luthor's radar, even if LuthorCorp likes to gobble up talent. Add that to the fact that Lionel Luthor doesn't seem to know she exists, and it's one for the Wall of Weird."

* * *

Dilys had been prepared to awaken overheated and embarrassed. It's not every day (or year, or decade) that one plays teddy bear for the local reformed-playboy billionaire, after all. 

As it turned out, she managed the hot and ickily sweaty part, but all traces of embarrassment were swamped by the pressure of hands about her throat. She tried to gasp but only managed to wheeze a thin trickle of air into complaining lungs. In the half-light, the deep blue eyes mere inches from her face looked almost black and definitely feverish. Their pupils were dilated to almost twice of what Dilys thought was usual.

"L?" she whispered. Apparently, having one's larynx compressed was not conductive to oratory feats. Her usually overactive mind was a blank. A useful future reference for those insomniac nights, she supposed, though paranoid-delusional bosses were usually in short supply.

"You almost had me there, D," Lex spoke almost conversationally. "Drugged up, on the run, what else could I do but turn to my one 'ally' in all this? Excellent bond-building scenario, you don't think?"

Dilys would have groaned, if the weight on her chest had not made hollowing out her lungs an unpleasant prospect. The chiseled lines of Lex's face, made eerie by the night and unstable glitter of his eyes, hardened when he caught and misinterpreted her despair. He pressed harder, making her choke for a few excruciating seconds. Her hands flew instinctively to loosen his grip, but if her efforts made any difference, the black spots about her vision blocked them out.

"Who do you work for? My father? One of his rivals?"

"Paranoid much, L?" she gasped, regretting the cost of air with each word.

He crushed her deeper into the mattress. She fancied feeling a few individual springs digging into her back. "Well that is just what you wanted, isn't it? Me jumping at every shadow, not being able to tell between real and hallucinated? Congratulations."

"Can't... talk... can't... breath."

For a long moment Dilys began the decent into unconsciousness, but somewhere in the last moments air flooded into her starving lungs. The sensation was painfully bright, like the inside of a rung bell. Fingers remained wrapped about her throat, but she was willing to tolerate them so long as the pressure remained only warning. Not that Lex seemed particularly eager to entertain votes on the subject.

"How can I possibly produce proof of _not_ working for somebody? There's nothing I can say if you've already made up your mind. But you can think past this, L, you can beat this drug." She had to stop for an explosive series of coughs, but continued to force words out of shallow breaths. "And you've probably screened me more closely than your security personnel, because of the work I'm doing for you. You don't have to trust me, but since when did you not trust yourself?"

"Everybody has a price."

"Some of us can't be bought, only given."

"So who are you loyal to, D. Chase?"

"You, but keep this up and I'll really start wondering why."

His face contorted, and for the first time Dilys could read the emotions flashing through Lex: disbelief, anger, confusion. His hands tightened... then just before black overcame her vision, released. Still, he did not get off her yet, though he did ease some of the pressure by propping up on his elbows.

"It's not wearing off, is it," Dilys stated after several long, satisfying drags of air.

His jaw and the vein up the side of his head twitched. "No."

"It has got to be a sustained effect. They have been dosing you for a long time, the effects must be cumulative and gradual so you didn't suspect. It only makes sense that it will take a long time to work out of your system, probably the same time scale as it took to build up in the first place. Weeks, months--"

"The point, D!"

She swallowed against the shrapnel in her throat. "Well, obviously 'wait and see' has just proven to be a lousy strategy. I suppose it's not a very Luthorian kind of choice but I-- uh, anyway obviously we need another option. Easiest would be an antidote, but if it even exists, which I somehow doubt, I don't see how we can find it seeing that nobody has any idea what you were given and we don't exactly have access to a medical lab and, uh, my espionage skills are a bit rusty. Clark Kent said something about the drug having been in your scotch but that doesn't narrow it down, does it, and anyway I don't know anything about this kind of stuff, it's more your area of expertise and--"

A rough shake snapped off her rambling. "Options?" Lex demanded.

Dilys could not quite face his effortless conviction that she had those to offer, and found her eyes sliding sideways to the long, elegant fingers that had been choking the life from her mere minutes ago. "I, uhm," she stammered.

"Get on with it!"

"Transfusion. I'm thinking, the drug is in your blood, right? So, a transfusion..."

Lex narrowed his eyes, then nodded. He pushed off her in one decisive move, spinning to sit on the edge of the bed. It all happened faster than she had prepared for. "Fine."

More shakily than her pride enjoyed, Dilys scooted until she was sitting up herself. Knees folded against her chest and arms slung around her legs, she was not aware that she had curled as far away as she could get. She concentrated on the under-rated luxury of breathing.

Lex stared at her, eyes blue and almost inscrutable as modus operandi.

"I'm type O," Dilys continued hesitantly. "You...?"

A curt nod.

"Oh, that makes it much easier. We could, erm, exchange a few pints. I'm pretty sure that diluting the concentration of the drug in your veins will work, after all you didn't start, uh, behaving, er, oddly until recently. There must be some kind of critical threshold-- oh but where would we ever find the equipment--"

"Leave that to me."

Somehow, it was a less-than-comforting statement.

* * *

Long, short-nailed fingers tapped at the steering wheel, to accompany a nervously jiggling leg. Why she was the sidekick in the car while a certain rather volatile, very recognizable billionaire was out negotiating with suspicious drug-lord types, Dilys had to ponder for the n-th time. It probably had to do with the fact that she couldn't tell cocaine from morphine. Or that she had no clue where they were, much less who to talk to. Or because she couldn't intimidate a mouse if she carried a machine gun. Or all of the above. 

No sound carried over the smoggy air of fringe-Metropolis. Dilys would never have imagined that there were druggies to be found on the wrong side of midnight, but supposed that like any other business there was the early worm factor. It had taken them many hours since last night to undo the tangled trail she had taken away from Smallville, but Lex had been implacable in his need to resolve all as soon as possible. She should have been exhausted, but was instead wired like one of her research spurts. Adrenaline made an excellent coffee substitute.

The flannel-clad businessman made an odd figure amongst the small group of leather and piercings. The swagger in his louder-than-usual gestures looked rather belligerent to the observing Dilys, but the others seemed to take it in stride. If they knew him from previous acquaintance as she suspected (she might have hacked a report or two up on a potential employer), he must have been nasty while under the influence. She wasn't incredibly surprised.

And then Lex was stalking towards her. Dilys would have been relieved, but for the escort at his back.

One swarthy hand snatched at his shoulder, spinning him around. "Not so fast, pretty boy," a surprisingly smooth voice growled. "I ain't done yet."

Two other goon-types lent the aggressor courage, while the last came to thrust his upper body through Dilys' car window. She had foolishly lowered it to catch whatever of Lex's transaction she could (not), and there was a second's disconnect between shock and her attempt to wind it back up. A faster hand dug into her arm; the bruises already there hadn't even healed.

She thought she might get drunk from the fumes in his bad breath. It was a good reason not to hyperventilate, but her lungs weren't listening.

"Really," Lex uttered with a reasonable facsimile of his usual indifference. "Because I am."

His inflection was a little too stiff to be casual, but Dilys was probably the only one to catch that detail.

"Yeah? Too bad, 'cos I just a changed mah mind."

"It doesn't pay to go back on your deals, JD. Especially deals with a Luthor."

"Oh, I dunno 'bout that, Lexy. See, word on tha street says pops has it out for his l'il boy. Word says a man can retire on that lot a greenies."

"You could, if you're interested in ocean floor property."

The leader advanced, until he was within arm's reach and towering over Lex's slighter form. The expression that twisted his face was pure ugliness. "Thinks his so smart, da l'il Luthor. Mebbe I'll knock some a that hoity-toity outta his noggin afore I take him home ta pops."

Dilys' attention was abruptly rerouted as the throb of her left wrist spiked into Pain!. She watched in fixated horror as blood welled up under the thug's fingernails, and a crude leer stretched his face. His voice somehow managed to be more repulsive than his looks. "I don' mind doin' Lexy's gurlie here. Uglier than me pa, but soft enough where it matters, I s'pose. Scrapin' da bottom of da trash can, eh rich boy?"

There was a strange sort of insult in that, Dilys decided. The fumes were definitely making her dizzy.

Two things happened at once: the leader drove a fist into Lex's stomach, and the flunky reached for the latch of Dilys' door. She caught an impression of her compatriot doubling up before fear punched her own gut. In a burst of adrenaline-driven clarity, her free hand scrabbled for and found the bunch of pens she kept close at hand for those mid-traffic-light inspirations. Her hindbrain drove it towards her assailant's eye. His scream rang her eardrums, obscuring some of the profanities he followed up with.

Dilys had frozen at the blood dripping off the tips of her pens, but instinct acted independently and pressed her foot on the accelerator. The crash of metal upon metal jolted her into slamming the brakes just a sliver of a second before she splattered her car on a wall of the cul-de-sac. She threw a frantic glance back over her shoulder, but the druggies seemed to all be ignoring her and honing in on the more valuable prey. Lex was somewhere closer to the floor than up and fighting, but a howl announced that he had at least gotten one punch in.

Her hand slipped off the shaft the first time she tried to engage reverse gear, but eventually the car screeched backwards along the small road, narrowly missing the brawling clump of men. The loud, long blat of horn as Dilys slammed her hand on it distracted them for only a moment, but it was enough for Lex to twist away. She grabbed a home-made "gift" from the compartment between the front seats, and prayed she would not fumble lobbing it out of the window.

The men collapsed, hacking, onto the tarmac. Dilys held her breath (unnecessarily) until the window had risen all the way to the top, but failed to tear her eyes away from a morbid fascination with the scene.

The car shook as Lex pounded on the passenger door with one hand, the other holding a handkerchief to his nose and mouth. She hit unlock. He fell more than climbed in, slammed the door, snarled "Drive."

Dilys did not need to be asked once. A mile or two later, she finally took stock of the surprisingly professional-looking set of tubes and plastic-wrapped needles sitting in her accomplice's lap. The packaging was clenched in his left hand, but his head was thrown back and she knew he had caught more of the choking gas than he would admit. She wondered if there were castes of drug-dealers, and none but the best for heirs of multinationals, of course. Even if their customer service left much to be desired.

Five miles later, Lex threw the pre-paid phone that had dwindled her cash supply -- just for whims like chatting up drug lords -- out of the window.

* * *

His mind was clearer than it had been for days, perhaps weeks. 

Lex spent a few minutes taking his surroundings in from a prone position. The needles and still-running tubes of blood gave him pause for a moment before he remembered. Steady pulses of maroon mesmerized him for a while before he eased slowly to a sitting position, legs dangling over the edge of the single bed he had been lying on. His abdomen yelled in protest of motion, but he pushed the pain away and locked it up.

The new position put the occupant of the other bed in his direct line-of-sight. Lex studied her sprawled and sleeping form with eyes trained in countless board meetings and social occasions: the first step to conquering was to know thy enemy. There were finger-shaped bruises about one wrist, both upper-arms, and an ugly necklace of them about her throat. He found himself staring, an unpleasant feeling fermenting in his stomach.

His last memory was of trying to wash the cobwebs out of his head with a cold shower. But, was it? He'd had a fever dream, perhaps, or another psychedelic vision. Snapshots that may or may not be actual memory drifted in scatters through his mind: the yield of cartilage under his thumbs; eyes so terrified, so nearby, he could pick out flecks of gold in their irises;

The young billionaire did not, as a rule, doubt his instincts. They told him to turn the pale, slack left wrist, his grasp slow and delicate. The contusions turned out to be two sets, one darker than the other and haloed with angry, blood-clotted crescents. The inflamed edges clearly indicated that they had not been cleaned, much less tended.

Luthors did not do remorse. Emotions were useful only insofar as they were marketable, pretty little tidbits to convince the rest of the world that they were semi-normal... just better. Lex was not so deluded as to think he could ever repress all feeling -- it was just a useful front -- but he made it a habit to never feel remorse. Remorse implied plans gone wrong, and incompetence was not a state he strove for or tolerated.

Before he knew it, twenty minutes had passed while he was thus fixated. The mocking inner voice that took him to task had a cadence remarkably like Lionel Luthor.

Lex pinched the point of entry of the needle in his arm before pulling it out. Repeating it on the sleeping woman's behalf, he was careful to maintain pressure until the small wound no longer wept. The familiarity of the motion tasted like the old socks his tongue wore. It was ancient history, though, for Lex had kept scrupulously clear of "recreational cocktails" since his first day of college. If he were honest with himself -- and he always was -- he could pinpoint the exact moment the resolution began.

---((( **Flashback** )))---

"Best friend?" The tall blond boy snorts. "Yeah, I'll betcha Duncan felt like cue-ball here was his 'best friend' alright. Must be all that love when he was pounding the shit out of him just before he got offed."

The girl's eyes were very wide, and she did not take them off the boy with the cap. "They told me it was an, it was an accident."

"Nobody saw the car!" His voice was defensive; he hadn't yet perfected the facade of unfeeling.

"Or maybe it was when cue-ball started tearing ol' Duncan a new one for being a weirdo," the blond continued as if there had been no interruption. "Of course, you can't get much weirder than a Luthor."

A sneer twisted the dark boy's face. "Face it, baldy, you'll never be one of us. Or one of anybody."

The seated boys grew similar facial features.

Light brown eyes remained unwavering, and the capped boy felt as if they were pleading with him to dispute their jeers. It was a game his father played each of the scant times he deigned to visit, and he knew the precise flavor of disappointment next in the script. He forced his face into the mask of non-expression that he had been taught.

"I know you were a good friend to Duncan." Her eyes flickered all over his face, searching for something she could not possibly find. "He is, was, a very s-special... Any half-brained mob can define 'normal', but true strength is in deciding for yourself what you want! It is keeping true to yourself while finding it. It takes passion, vision, persistence, all the things that make a person great. There are more important things in life than being a dime-store copy of whatever flavor is in the 'in' at the mo--"

The opening door only whispered on the carpeting, but the secretary's voice was sharp enough: "Ms. Chase."

She startled, head whipping towards the Principal's office. And then she was gone, swallowed up by a room all the present boys had seen the inside of several times too many. The ensuing silence was haunted by uncomfortable ideas before they managed to laugh her away.

The capped boy scowled at the re-shut door. For once, he heard not one word of the snickers and taunts that the others gifted him. He was mulling over the girl's parting speech. It was not himself that she had waxed poetic about, of course. He knew full well that she had been defending Duncan, probably _from_ him.

But he wondered how it might feel, to have somebody so think so passionately high of him.

---((( **End flashback** )))---

The woman stirred, subconsciously rolling over to face him. A strange buzz of thoughts invaded Lex's awareness, like television in an adjoining room -- loud enough to annoy, not distinct enough to comprehend. He was still pointlessly crouched by Dilys' bedside when her eyes fluttered open. Her pupils were unseeingly dilated for a moment before she blinked him into focus.

The strangest of sounds rolled from her throat, and he realized that Dilys was, well, giggling. He had scored a laugh or two throughout the years, but a giggle was incredibly odd, as was her welcome-back: "You shouldn't stare so close, L. Makes your eyes cross."

"Pardon?" He had not reestablished the habitual reserve well enough to mask his confusion. Moreover, the buzz in his mind had increased until it seemed almost like _his_ eyes were the ones plagued with double images. Retreating to his bed, he was relieved to find the disorientation lessen until it was an ignorable background testing the shores of his brain.

"Oh maybe it's my eyes that are crossing. Well usually I see two images anyway, left eye and right eye, you know. Can't read when my eyes are crossed but that's okay, I don't have to read right now at this moment, do I?"

Belatedly, Lex understood. "Side-effects. I should have taken into account that you have about three pints less blood than I do," he said disapprovingly. "You have a greater concentration of the drug in you now, plus your body hadn't been conditioned to take it."

That giggle again, accompanied by a vague flutter of the hand she was not lying on. "Yes, yes, a Luthor has to be a-hundred-fifty percent functional, even when drugged up and hallucinating." A look of pure astonishment then crossed her face. "I feel dizzy and tickly and floaty and... huh, drunk? Is this like drunk?"

Lex shrugged, but privately conceded that it was a plausible diagnosis. It stood to reason also that Dilys might have a different reaction to the drug, one presumably tailored for Luthorian designs against wayward sons.

"But I'm supposed to be all angsty and paranoid, not drunk. I've never been drunk in my life!" Her voice was indignant, then suspicious. "You didn't look drunk. Can a Luthor get drunk? But I don't want to be drunk! I can see all these little thoughts floating around but can't catch any of them, they're too bubbly and this most awful shade of green and I don't know, do you think in color? Well it's an awful color anyway so you probably don't want to. It's making me dizzy, can you make them all stop please?"

He buried a smile, and went to fetch her a glass of water. Juice would have been better, but the hovel they were camped out in lacked the usual (as Lex's expectations went) fridge full of goodies, plus they had neglected lunch. Not the best laid plans, he thought, lips now effortlessly grim. He helped Dilys up, keeping one hand on her back as she drank. Perhaps the physical contact would help ground her like it usually did.

She shook her head as if trying to dislodge some of the fuzziness. "Still floaty, L. Watered floaty, floaty. Who knew clouds have it so hard? But you'll think of something, you always do. I don't think I can think of thinking anything right now because it's just all floaty and I think but don't know if I am thinking and..."

A sigh escaped his self-control as her words degenerated into incoherent mumbling. Lex reached for the phone, hoping that the motel was at least enough inches from rock bottom to have room service. "I think we'll both... think better with some food in us."

An hour, two burgers and lots of sugar-water a.k.a. "juice" later -- after which Lex could hardly miss his companion's disdain for "overgrown sandwiches" -- Dilys was regarding him with more of her usual calm analyticity. He did not acknowledge relief. Relief implied that he couldn't handle the alternative.

"So," Dilys began, but did not look up from the napkin she was folding into an unidentified origami object. "Guess that makes me a chatty drunk. Assuming it was like being drunk, which I really don't have a basis of comparison for. But then if I did I wouldn't be wondering, would--"

Lex smirked from his cross-legged pose on the chair. Long practice allowed him a flair as if draped over the grandest throne instead of creaky wood and prickly cushion. A moment of consideration, though, made him wonder why he bothered in present oblivious company.

Dilys shut her mouth after a moment of it hanging open on the last word. "Okay, right, zipping up now. Sorry you're stuck with a chatty drunk."

"They have their uses," he said dryly.

Uncomfortable silence ensued. Lex felt no need to fill it himself. He was used to having others do the work, since it was only time before they succumbed to the human need for noise to compensate vacancy of action.

"How's the weather?"

Lex blinked, having just lost every bid on what he expected of her. He planned to chalk the lapse up to remnant disorientation... but those golden-brown orbs were _laughing_ at him.

"Sufficient," he pronounced after an exaggerated moment of thought. "But an incoming front of LuthorCorp agents is indicated for the near future. Expect it to be flanked by opportunists."

"Luthors. Never rains but pours." A pause, as Dilys finished her fourth origami thing and began on a fifth. "The squall line is going to be too fast to outrun, isn't it?"

He nodded curtly.

"I don't suppose there are shelters deep enough to matter."

The billionaire let his face harden, a warning to the world and especially her. "Doesn't matter. I have no intention of holing up for the decades it will take to blow over."

Pale fingers stacked the origami blobs one on top of the other, a tower as precarious as the events that had brought them to this moment out of time. "I don't suppose your father could just ground you in the penthouse."

His lips quirked. The scientist had no idea how much that summed up the breadth of Lex's plans, nor the scope of the game he intended to play.


	7. Chapter 5

**Nascence -- Chapter Five**

"If you felt like a change in uniform, I'm sure some makeover people could have sufficed. To even your satisfaction."

The flex of muscles across his back was subtle, freezing for one millisecond before he turned. The motion was drunken, sloppy, and utterly bereft of Luthor grace. His features were somehow... soft -- in the sense of lacking their usual lethal focus. Dilys found her hands trembling. Fortunately, she had made good use of her pant pockets for sticking them in and out of the way. There was nothing quite as awkward as a pair of arms in an uncertain meeting.

"Branching out to wardrobe mistress, Ms. Chase? Or is it the deep dark secrets of unstable psyches that tempt you out of your lab these days?"

He came to stand too close to her. Lex Luthor maintained an all-but-visible personal sphere, except when it suited him to admit quarry into its perilous interior. Then again, Dilys did not need the coarse, ill-fitting blue cotton to remind her that the man before her was not quite Lex Luthor. Her shoulderblades itched under the Belle-Reve guards' stares, and the security camera above Lex's easel glared like a baleful eye. She wondered how many more of those malicious stares were hidden in the woodwork (or plasterwork, as it were).

"Just following the boss' example, Mr. Luthor."

A laugh rang out, the likes of which Dilys had trouble believing had ever troubled a Luthorian throat. After all, the species was bred for polite barings of teeth, sarcastic little smirks, and the very rare soundless chuckle.

Lex leaned conspiratorially closer. "File? Lock pick? Electronic scrambler? Plastic explosives?"

"Sorry, I heard that the money's all in nefarious world-domination plans nowadays."

He stared at her for a second that passed on to two, then light-colored lashes lidded over the blue of his eyes. Dilys has always thought that the need for the last word was hardcoded into the Luthor genome, but Lex simple shuffled away as if suddenly cut free from the tether of their somewhat-conversation. His feet rambled back to the easel, and she tentatively followed until she stood beside his stool.

"Glad to see you have a hobby," Dilys ventured as the minutes dragged on.

Lex ignored her, continuing to swirl his brush excessively through the primary-colored paints before inflicting a stroke or two on the masterpiece. Having lowered her eyes in an inexcusable bout of fidgets, the scientist froze when she finally noticed the slight solid lumps in the churned paint. She had to swallow hard against a sudden unclenching of her insides, relief not mixing particularly well with a new anxiety -- psychoactive drugs did eventually dissolve in acrylics, right?

"It's great," Dilys blurted. "Never imagined what you can do with paint."

"And where exactly do you wish this flattery to bring you, Ms. Chase?" Lex spoke over his shoulder, voice flat with disinterest.

"Insanity minus five months?"

"Careful, Doctor. Socially acceptable persons are a minority here."

She swallowed an immediate retort and murdered a nervous chuckle. The brush-strokes on canvas petered to a halt, ending with Lex staring vacantly at purple-coated bristles. It was heavier on red than blue, close to those lilac shirts even one Dilys Chase had managed to notice that the mogul-in-the-making favored.

"Mr. Luthor?" Her hands clasped and unclasped with the awkwardness of silence. "Mr. Luthor, are you alright?"

He was slow to turn, and blinked with lack of recognition. The paint brush drooped, severing one leg of the stool with a broad purple stroke. The furrows on his brow were a portrait of confusion, and altogether more emotion than Dilys had seen him express in the entire sum of their acquaintance. "Dr. Chase? What are you doing here?"

Dr. Foster had warned her that his memory had been spotty of late. "Just wondering about your, uh, sabbatical. Er, how do you feel?"

"I feel good." A smile stretched Lex's face widely. "Great. Neighbors are homicidal maniacs, but can't argue with the monotone decor."

Obliques upon the back of obliques. Then again, it wasn't so bad when one considered that Lex Luthor sparred as instinctively as he drew breath, and Dilys Chase had fallen in love with intellectual adversity at a very young age. A sotto voce "Lucky us" earned Dilys a strange look; apparently, non-sequiturs were supposed to be _his_ role in this script.

She tried to compensate with, "It's, uhm, not quite a vacation spot I figured you'd pick. What happened?"

His shrug indicated utter unconcern. "I was discussing my return to Metropolis with my father. I... there was..." A hand rose to rub his forehead, a crescendo in viciousness. Then, on the downsweep, his expression cleared into placidity. "Dr. Chase? You are here?"

Suddenly, she couldn't get far away enough. There was something unforgivably morbid about witnessing Lex Luthor in this state, like watching a panther crippled and blinded.

"Erm, no, guess I'm not really, can't be, right," she stammered. "Huge coherent fluctuation in the quantum vacuum. Fluke event only possible under the anthropic principle. I'll just, uh, make like a good virtual particle and pay back the energy debt now. Disappear, you know. Going, gone, bye, thanks for the lovely alice-ian chat."

Her feet were backing up, not quite retracing their earlier steps. Fortunately, technobabble was an excellent people-repellent even in the esoteric Belle Reve. The inmates gave Dilys a five-foot berth, and some minor miracle arranged for her to collide into none of them. Then a thickly solid palm grabbed her upper arm, jolting her heart into overaction before she recognized the guard who had escorted her in.

She couldn't resist one last look over her shoulder. Lex stared after her wake, elbows resting on his knees, brush dangling between his left fingers. But his eyes were more gray than blue, and saw nothing of her person at all.

* * *

"Alexander. Your parents call you Lex, don't they? May I call you Lex?" 

Silence.

"Well, Lex, wouldn't you like to draw? You can have as much paper as you want."

The young boy, not quite twelve years of age, had already been staring down at the large sheet of construction paper set before him. His posture is prep-school correct, his dress so impeccably formal as to make the plain black baseball cap on his head reek red herring. His eyes, when he raises them, are blue-gray and brimful with contempt for the talk-down-to.

"Alright, you don't have to draw if you don't want to. Lex, do you remember Julian?"

The silence is long, but there is no change in the flat blue stare.

"You know that Julian is gone, don't you, Lex?"

Quirkily shaped lips tremble for the briefest moment, but that is all.

"It's alright to cry, Lex. You can cry when bad things happen."

The weakness of vulnerability evaporates like a dewdrop in a desert. The contempt returns, augmented by a sneer.

"Do you remember what happened, Lex?"

Silence.

"What happened, Lex?"

Silence.

"What happened to Julian, Lex?"

Silence.

---((( **Fast forward** )))---

The wide wooden table is the same, down to the mahogany highlights in the lacquer. The rectangular construction paper is the same. The jar of thick crayons is the same, brightly-colored but for one glossy black. The boy is superficially the same, collared shirt, tailored slacks, baseball cap.

There is a dullness to the dark blue eyes. Previously, they have unfailingly been too sharp, too old.

"Why hello, Lex. And how is my favorite patient feeling today?"

The smirk is hundred-fifty percent disbelief, yet muted in some ineffable way.

"You're a very bright young man, aren't you, Lex?"

"Big pity _you_'re not."

This time, the usual silence is tinged with unusual shock. "Surely you understand that your father would have entrusted his only son only to the best."

"Luthors can't be seen with anything but the best." The curl of the boy's lips is lazy, predator toying with prey.

"Lex, I only want to help you."

"And your pocketbook, and your resume."

"No, I want to help _you_. Losing a brother is a traumatic experience, Lex. You don't have to go through it alone."

Silence.

"You don't trust me. That's quite alright, Lex. Trust has to be earned."

Silence.

"How's this? I'll make you a deal. We'll call it an end for today's session, shall we? Let's take a walk in the park instead. It is beautiful this time of year."

Silence.

---((( **Fast forward** )))---

There is hardly a difference in the quality of the video, though the setting makes it obvious that it is recorded by a portable (even Luthor-funded psychiatrists do not own wired neighborhood greens). It is evening, the harsh rays of sun having softened enough to lure families into the lush, well-manicured park. The boy sits straight-backed on the bench, staring resolutely at a bush though his eyes dart occasionally towards the latest source of shrieks, shouts, and laughter. A slightly portly, middle-aged man sits by him, but there is at least ten inches between their legs.

"Ah, this is much better than that stuffy old office, isn't it, Lex? This has always been my favorite spot, but I must admit that it's been even nicer these past few days with company."

"You seem right fond of all that Bauhaus art and architecture."

A chuckle. "Quite, quite. But nothing beats Nature's sculptures, don't you think?"

There is very little of Nature's hand in their beautiful surrounds beyond its providence of raw material, but the boy does not point it out. Under the shadow of lashes, his eyes track a toddler who runs on short stubby legs across the lawn before tumbling into the safety of waiting arms.

"Have you ever been to a park with Julian, Lex?"

"It's not safe for Julian in the park."

"I see. But if it had been safe, would you have liked to play with Julian in the park?"

"Julian is just a baby. And playing is a waste of time."

"Julian was, Lex."

Silence.

"Julian is gone, Lex. I know it is hard to accept, but it is the truth."

Silence.

"If you remember what happened, Lex, it will help you put it behind you."

Silence. But the blue eyes were no longer coy in their interest, and were pinned on the flailing limbs of a squalling one-year-old. "Julian always cries. Julian cries too much."

"What happened to Julian, Lex?"

Silence.

"Lex, can you remember what happened to Julian?"

Silence.

---((( **Fast forward** )))---

The park has not changed, despite the changing roster of actors that populate it. Every day some time between dusk and twilight, a bevy with spades and scissors are paid to whisk past the flowering hedges, fancifully shaped trees, and tiered fountains, as invisibly effective as any army of gnomes.

The boy is different, though. His shoulders are not as squarely set as they used to be, and one hand fidgets with a crease in rather too-loose pants.

"Lex, tell me about Julian."

"Julian is my brother. He's two months old. He's to be christened soon."

"You know that Julian's not here anymore, don't you, Lex?"

The hand's agitation increases, but the capped head bows once, twice. It does not raise from the second dip.

"What happened to Julian, Lex?"

"He, he was crying. Julian is always crying."

"What happened then?"

Silence.

"Lex, did Julian stop crying?"

Silence.

"Do you remember what happened, Lex?"

Silence.

---((( **Fast forward** )))---

The creamy white of the construction paper is stark against the mahogany wood. In one corner is a sketch -- round baby cheeks peeking from between swaddling clothes. Only the black crayon has been permitted to mark the sheet. The lines are clumsy with a child's lack of refinement, but the crudeness of execution does not quite conceal an underlying raw talent.

"Lex, what happened after Julian was crying?"

The boy continues rubbing the waxy tip over the matte surface, not looking up. His voice is a little slurred, from a face that is half parts vacant. "He... stopped."

"Why did he stop, Lex? Why did Julian stop crying?"

"He stopped."

"Did something happen to make Julian stop, Lex?"

The crayon broke, but the boy pressed on with the lower nub. The lines it makes are thicker, harsher, less precise.

"Tell me what happened to Julian, Lex."

"I don't... I don't remember."

"Are you sure?"

"I don't remember!"

"Alright. It's okay, Lex. It's okay to not remember."

* * *

Dilys stabbed the "close" button with unnecessary vehemence, and the characters vanished in an anticlimax of terminated window. It had been a lucky break for the two fugitives that the records of Lex Luthor's first psychiatric treatment were in digital storage. Otherwise, she would have had to add "break-in and illegal entry" to that pending lawsuit (expected any day now). Then she would have been pressed to digitize plus destroy the tapes herself -- grand and conveniently recorded confessions were so passe for the modern villain(ess). As it were, her laptop was probably a 100 Sv radiation threat now, to be buried in the deepest lead-lined bunker at the earliest opportunity.

Nobody had seen fit to inform Dilys that criminal activity was three-fourths thumb-twiddling. In the meanwhile, she could help replaying over and over her handful of pieces in the olympic-pool-sized puzzle that was Lex Luthor. She managed enough self-control -- this time -- to not punch up the statement of medications prescribed throughout those long-ago sessions. Her memory ensured that she could conjure it up in her mind much more easily, but there was something appalling/comforting in the more physical act. Like poking at a weeping wound.

"Damn!"

The expletive made Dilys swing halfway around, though the voice had come over the headphones plugged into her laptop. The cursor darted to a small window in the top right corner, and the video expanded to encompass the entire screen.

"Devious bastard," the starring african-american woman muttered, no doubt by intention under her breath. But Belle-Reve had nothing but the best in surveillance technology... and Dilys was running the pilfered feed through an audio enhancing filter. As she watched, Dr. Claire Foster a.k.a. Lex's psychiatrist buried her face in one hand, an uncharacteristic indication of despair.

There were no more words in next minutes, just the occasional tap of fingers on keys. It was not particularly difficult to peek at the document Dr. Foster was working on, not with the back door into the Belle-Reve network Dilys had installed during that carefully-planned visit half a week ago. The access was only to the occasionally quick-saved version, not the most recent contents in memory, but it was sufficient and more.

Though pre-warned, confirmation of the bad news earthquaked Dilys' hard-won hope. Dr. Foster suspected either an unprecedented ability of Lex's body to neutralize the prescribed psychoactive drugs, or an unplanned-for cunning on Lex's behalf in avoiding his daily dosage. There were clear indicators of which hypothesis she preferred. Dilys rather thought that there was no surprise there, what with that history of inability to take responsibility for her own mistakes.

The physicist had been careful to alter the half-weekly blood composition reports on one Lex Luthor, even if it was more or less a guessing game as to which numbers to push up and down to make it seem as if he were progressing as Dr. Porter expected. The CAT scans were even more of a feat. Still, Dilys could not begin to compare such tasks to the monumental effort of acting as if you were slowly losing your grip on reality, twenty-four hours times seven days times four-and-a-half weeks. And counting.

Whatever could have gone wrong? Which of them had slipped? Had the psychiatrist somehow expected a progression vastly different from Lex's eleven-year-old self? Even the completed version of Dr. Foster's report provided no clues. Anyway, it was a moot point, for the pressing need now was for damage control.

Fingers hovered, instinctively prepped to wipe the report out so thoroughly, no physical trace could exist. Her mood being a particularly vicious one, Dilys further contemplated infecting the doctor's computer -- nay, why not the entire Belle-Reve? -- with a concoction of viruses. Yet all the paths unfurling in her mind screamed disaster: Dr. Foster would be suspicious, and that would avalanche all the way up to the dread Lionel Luthor.

Perhaps she should take hacking up as a hobby. Dilys could imagined nothing more satisfying right now than to be able to bring the whole LuthorCorp computing crashing down about its electronic auditory organs.

Idle mental pacing.

In the dimly-lit (she had forgotten to turn on the lights again) confines of her work-cum-living-room, Dilys Chase stared at her laptop screen. Then she began to systematically panic.


	8. Chapter 6

**Nascence -- Chapter Six**

The young woman was nervous, and that was a rock-solid diagnosis. Claire Foster was good at reading people, despite what some colleagues had begun to whisper behind her back. Yet another not-so-gentle tug on the reins by the Luthor patriarch, yet another reason the concealer underneath her eyes had only gotten thicker these past months.

Claire had never, in all twenty-odd years on the job, ever encountered as oedipus a tragedy as the Luthor clan. But that was a saga for some never-to-be day, for right now she had other, if related, concerns.

A portrait of plain in simple blouse and slacks, the young woman seemed an interesting subject on her own. Light brown hair caught back in a stern ponytail, no makeup, not even studs in her ears -- definitely unusual in a century of grooming products and feminine pride in their wiles. The hands in pockets (after their perfunctory shake) and the unnaturally rigid posture screamed "nervous", but beyond that Claire had to admit drawing a blank.

The human condition is a complex one. Even when one major thread of thought strings a person's mind, he/she cannot help but entertain a buzz of related concepts and secondary concerns. Emotional landscapes are even less well-defined, and it takes rare effort to maintain just one feeling, pure of other shades. Claire would have gone so far as to claim it impossible, yet here stood this young woman with her sandwich board advertising "nervous"... and nothing else underneath.

It perked every people-sense in Claire's body. She would have paid good money for a candid chat with the girl's psychiatrist, and more to have her as a subject.

But right now the Luthor affair was forcing her into unpaid overtime.

"Lex is suffering from a very confused state of mind, Ms. Chase," Claire said in answer to the initial, tentative query. "I'm sure he appreciates your concern, but right now it is in Mr. Luthor's best interest for us to limit the contact he has with people peripheral to his life. He needs to refocus on reality, not become sidetracked by distractions."

"I'm sure you're right. It does seem to be in Lionel Luthor's best interests to lock his son up until these 'trying times' can be PR-ed over. Keep the wound packed until the leak can be plugged, or better still turn off the blood supply. Has the iron mask been ordered yet?"

The onslaught -- and that mishmash of metaphors! -- took some blinks to digest. Much to her dissatisfaction, the psychiatrist was forced to ratchet up the threat factor of this particular "one-track scientist".

One significant key to Lex Luthor's psyche was his collection of oddity friends; it was just not one Claire had managed to unravel. Hindsight blamed her glib dismissal of the young woman based on how peculiar it was to visit one's boss in a facility for the criminally insane. But surely it was not unjustified to have assumed it was a case of infatuation and inflated self-importance? Dilys Chase was buckets far from the first female to think she was The One to save "poor rich boy" from a life of private misery, after all.

Lex wasn't the only one who didn't know what to believe anymore.

"I have no idea what you are talking about, Ms. Chase," Claire protested. "Mr. Luthor has some say in his son's treatment, since Lex's judgment is impaired and he is the closest living relative. But the final decisions lie with me and Lex's other doctors, and I assure you that we have only our patient's health in mind."

Up-drawn eyebrows, tensed mouth: the nervousness had segued into disbelief. Claire looked for lingering traces of fear, but it seemed to have been washed cleanly out. The young woman's body language remained as flat as ever. It was as if a single shade exhausted her capacity for emotion, leaving no room for qualifiers. It would have been fascinating if it wasn't so unnerving.

"I hope you're not in the habit of lying to your patients as well, Dr. Foster. You and I both know that Lionel Luthor has a noose around your neck and is making it very much felt. And oh, hope you don't mind that I took some liberties with the vidcams in here. I was prepared to ask politely, but didn't think the guards would be too agreeable about us talking off the record."

Claire blanched, though it was fortunately not visible on her dusky skin. Was it denial or naivete, that she never considered she might be under surveillance? She had the terrible premonition that she would never again live or work in a place and not jump at every oddly-shaped shadow.

"What are you playing at?" Claire spat, trying to keep from appearing defensive. Canonical rule of psychiatry: don't let the patient throw you off balance -- and if you fail, then for your own sake don't show it.

"You have a latest writeup on Lex Luthor sitting in that computer, Dr. Porter. One you have been wondering if you should send to Lionel. You need to destroy that file. You need to report that your patient's 'rehabilitation' is successful and complete."

So, that mousy facade sheathed steel of disturbingly familiar caliber. It took Claire a moment to realize that it was like that the Luthor heir was composed of, though far less obvious. The young woman had claimed he was her employer, but just what nature of "employment" was that? Dilys Chase was no schoolgirl like that tall Kent boy and his short blond friend. In fact, one had to wonder if she had ever been so normal.

"What you are doing is highly illegal, and I am certainly not going to retract my professional opinion just because you think you can barge in here and make empty threats."

"As I recall, I made an appointment with your secretary. I have threatened you with the grand total of nothing, and you should really think hard before claiming various 'professional opinions'."

"I have a duty to the truth, Ms. Chase. One I fully intend to fulfill."

"And do you also have a 'duty' to Lionel Luthor? Or perhaps another verb be more appropriate, like 'obligation'?"

"As the father of the patient, Mr. Luthor has the right--"

"To order you to erase the past month from his son's memory? Didn't you study all about machiavellian personalities, doctor? Or at the very least, human rights?"

The words were belligerent, but the young woman spoke matter-of-factly, her voice as little animated as her features. It was disconcerting, and worse, like an unreachable rash. Dilys Chase definitely knew more than too much about the many bolts on the Claire's cage. She needed to tell her 'benefactor' of all this, but was no fool to think he wouldn't demand the young woman's destruction.

Claire Foster hadn't quite learned to swallow down murder with impunity, yet.

"Prolonged... association with Lionel Luthor is not particularly good for health, Dr. Foster. Physical or mental."

"Are you threatening me?" Claire was incredulous, not at the idea itself, but that the girl presumed to deliver it. Going by appearances had served her badly so far, but there was no mistaking that the tone had been apologetic rather than anywhere near intimidating.

"I'm telling you what you already know. You've seen what Lionel is willing to do to his son. What makes you think you have any sort of immunity?"

Claire tried to keep from grinding her teeth. "My primary responsibility is to my patient, Ms. Chase. Lex is a very disturbed young man. He needs treatment, not to be set loose on an unsuspecting public."

The tang of disapproval switched to full-blown disgust. "Your patient is perfectly sane, and you know it. The problems Lex Luthor has are beyond your ability to untangle, you know that too. Keeping him here accomplishes nothing but to further Lionel Luthor's plans."

"You have no basis for any of your claims, young lady."

"I have read your reports. Including before you edit them to the tunes ordered by one Mr. Luthor."

"That is utter--"

"I can't promise to make Lionel Luthor go away, Dr. Foster. But I can promise you that if you let him destroy Lex, it will be another scar on your conscience."

Claire pressed her lips together, anger and unease roiling beneath the oily sheen of fear that was her "benefactor's" thumbprint.

"It's not that you need to do anything, Dr. Foster. Do nothing. Just let this one, let Lex go." The brown of the young woman's eyes were very light, almost amber. They were also sharper than judgment and Claire could almost hear lock, load, fire: "You took an oath to 'first do no harm'."

* * *

"You didn't see him in Belle-Reve, dad. I've never known Lex to be so unfocused, so, well, lost. Half the time he kept on forgetting that he was even talking to me."

Jonathan and Martha shared a look behind their son, whose back was bowed unhappily over the counter of their airy kitchen.

"I knew I should've gone with him instead of trusting that Dr. Chase."

Jonathan tensed with disapproval. "That would have done nothing, son, except put you on the wrong side of the law and Lionel Luthor's hit list."

"He's been having Lex drugged in his own home, and who knows what else it took for him to lose almost two months of his most recent memories like that! This is all just terribly wrong, dad."

"You don't know that for sure, Clark. Lex was obviously... not himself, but he _is_ better now."

The boy ran a hand through his tousled black locks, finally turning to face his parents though his eyes soon slid defeatedly to the floor. "Yeah, yeah, I suppose. He seemed happy."

Jonathan darted another look at his wife, finding it nigh impossible to imagine the young Luthor in any context involving "happy". She returned a one-shoulder shrug, and he decided to steer the conversation off the controversial topic of their local billionaire and on towards a more pressing matter.

"You mentioned that Dr. Chase saw that car run into you, son? How bad is it?"

Clark's shoulders slumped further still. "She was waiting in a car for Lex, and then she rushed out to get him. I'm pretty sure she saw everything."

"She is a physicist," Martha put forth, though the look on her face claimed that there were an infinite number of other things she would rather do. Almost subconsciously, she drew closer to her husband.

"Probably works on one of Lex's illegal experiments with meteors," Jonathan muttered darkly. Angry as he was, he still automatically wrapped an arm around his wife. "I can't think of a worse type of person to get suspicious. She's not a Luthor, but sure has her mouth plastered close to the ear of one."

"Lex doesn't remember any of it." Clark was clearly ambivalent about the matter, torn between horror at the injustices he believed had been committed against his friend, and relief that his secret was still his to conceal.

"It's only a matter of time before Dr. Chase tells him," Jonathan stated grimly. "From what you've told us about her, she is the worst person we could ever have dig around. Dammit!"

"Jonathan!" Martha rebuked, but a troubled frown had fixed itself on her forehead. "Maybe we can talk to her, persuade--"

"You don't get that close to a Luthor without owning at least one toe dipped in the muck their kind call--"

"Dad!"

The small family fell silent, each recalling the last doctor -- also female, also embroiled with the young Luthor -- they had trusted part of Clark's secret to.

"I still can't locate Dr. Chase." The teenager's admission was glum. "Chloe found all sorts of records up to '02. But it's like she dropped off the face of the earth when she graduated from Princeton, even though we know she's got to be staying somewhere nearby, Smallville or Metropolis."

His parents only grew unhappier at the news.

"You have to agree that this must be Lex's doing, son." Jonathan glowered at the absent man. "I'll say he has her on some project he doesn't want the world, not to mention his father, knowing about."

None of them mentioned the most likely candidate for that hypothetical research.

Noting a change in his son's expression, Jonathan pulled away from his wife to stand closer to the boy. "No, absolutely not," he forcefully preempted. "You are not to go running to _that man_ and try to explain everything."

Clark's chin jutted out, in the age-old tradition of teens when instructed that something was not good for them. "Dad--"

"I know you think of Lex as your friend, Clark. But he was born and raised a Luthor, and Luthors live on power. He will just end up hurting you and the people you love, even if it is with the best of intentions."

The boy did not protest his father's sweeping statement, for it was a subject they barely managed to agree to disagree on even after three years' practice. Instead he attempted logic: "Dad, he's going to find out anyway. It will only make him mad to hear it from somebody else."

Abruptly, Jonathan wheeled around and went to stare out of the window, as he was wont to do when angry.

Martha followed her husband with concerned eyes, but offered to the tense silence, "You could ask Lex where Dr. Chase is, Clark. Ask her over for dinner. I don't think she will say anything to Lex before she has at least some proof; she is a scientist after all. Maybe we can talk to her, reason with her before... She seemed like a good person."

"She works for Lex Luthor on something that can't be admitted to the world!" Jonathan exploded. "I'll not have some Princeton blueblood who doesn't know the meaning of ethics, sitting at my table, planning to dissect my son as she cuts up the steak!"

Martha sighed, transferring her eyes between her husband's unforgivingly girded arms and the clenching-unclenching muscles on her son's jaw. She moved to run a soothing hand over the latter's back, and proclaimed: "It's the best shot we've got, Jonathan."

Clark hemmed, wishing the sound would crack the tension. "I'll x-ray her for weapons at the front door, dad." He smiled with exaggerated goofiness. "And mom makes great chicken."

* * *

Sometimes, an adventure ends with no bang but a whimper. Novels and movies are forever neglecting that fact.

Dilys evicted yet another sigh from her throat, tapped a few more listless keystrokes, and contemplated rearranging the icons arrayed in her large LCD screen.

It had been one week at least since Lex had been released from Belle-Reve, one otherwise-run-of-the-mill Tuesday afternoon. She had kept close to home for a couple more days, monitoring various feelers she had out on the "situation". Then she had forced herself to taper off the pot-watching and blow the figurative dust off the toys in her lab (in reality, of course, a dust-free environment).

There had even been a new mystery to entrance the physicist, an enigma in the guise of a seventeen-year-old farmboy. She had systematically sifted through old data, revising hypotheses to factor in the existence of one wild-card and possibly pivotal being. All her speculations pointed more and more precisely towards him as impact point rippling out to all Smallville "happenings" -- and not just because he seemed to have been delivered via meteor rather than stork.

Nothing had been mentioned to anyone yet. Of course, Dilys' only confidant was the absent Lex Luthor, but she wasn't sure if she was ready to tell him either. There was an idea poised delicately on the verge of crystallizing, and she dared not let her heart beat too fast lest it crumble like a disturbed souffle. She never liked to present anything less than thoroughly-polished findings.

It did not help that the old rhythm of her days seemed to have been irrevocably broken. The simple security of work, meals, and occasional decompression with a digital paintbrush, seemed flat, stale. Dilys had never been plagued by this particular feeling before, this pressure at the back of her brain that grouched over how her lab was too quiet, too empty.

The restlessness seemed to have culminated into this wretched day. She had tried everything short of running around and tearing her hair out, and still every moment of quiet contemplation threatened to telescope dangerously into a trance. Kryptonite-induced hauntings were not so far-fetched, were they?

"I'm beginning to see a pattern here, D. Whatever would your boss think about paying for you to zone out in front of the screen?"

Dilys did not fall out of her chair this time, because her muscles were busy freezing. Slowly, almost reluctantly, she pushed on the desk with one hand and rotated around. She was on her feet without being conscious of moving. Her fingers remained gripped hard about the edge as eyes met, first the textured expanse of black knit, snug over a slim male chest, second the smooth, follicle-free face above it. One hand was jammed casually into tailored pockets.

"Thought I'd stay away from blue for a while," he said. The lips that had spoken were undoubtedly quirked in amusement, but she was mired in the impossible blue of a certain pair of eyes.

Time grew strangely elongated, a habit of the temperamental fourth dimension whenever Dilys thought too hard upon one thing. The effect, she had once tried to explain to Lex, must be like watching the universe fall into the event horizon of a black hole. True to form, right now, his hand moved in slowing motion and almost never arrived.

The weight of it on her shoulder shocked Dilys into a gasp. As time resettled into its normal pace, she became incongruously aware of the heat of Lex's fingers through the light material of her blouse. Had it been seconds? Minutes? Half an hour? All she knew was that his clasp did not release as it usually did after a perfunctory touch. It trapped all of her focus.

"Thank you," was softly aimed her way.

The plainness of that statement -- unadorned by sarcasm, untrivialized by witticisms -- staggered something in Dilys' world. It wasn't that simple, of course, Lex Luthor couldn't be simple if he trained regularly at it. He had to be furious at his father, further scarred by the rape of his self-control, obsessing over the latest unveiling of Clark Kent's secrets, and (don't forget!) calculating what to do with she who had barged unsolicited into the midst...

... was that tickle on her cheeks, tears? Impossible. Dilys Chase was far too emotionally repressed to blubber.

Suddenly and just as shockingly, she found her head tucked into the crook of a neck and her own harsh breaths fanning another person's skin. For a moment she panicked, thinking that this touchy-feely Lex Luthor must surely be a product of brain-rewiring after all; a sick dread that all the agony of the past month-and-a-half had turned out to be meaningless. But the hand rubbing circles into her back and the utterly unfamiliar smell of musk and cologne snipped the shoots off her thoughts before they could grow into a jungle, and her emotions gradually sloshed back to their comfortable sedateness.

Blue-gray eyes narrowed speculatively as he held her, but Dilys would never know that.

She had almost mastered faux composure by the time they disengaged, and sank self-consciously back into her seat. Lex watched her for a few seconds. Then, as if nothing had just happened (or, what happened was just nothing), he picked a mid-sized case up from the ground and moved languidly to the chair at the other end of the desk. It occurred to her that she had never seen the man just _walk_, there was always such production in his movements.

"Sorry," Dilys whispered to her keyboard, forcing herself to pick one of the many next dialogs that flashed through her mind. "Guess that rules out all this high-stress spy-espionage-fugitive stuff as a potential career move."

The fragrance of food escaped the hermetically sealed containers as Lex unpacked, punctuated by the soft clink of plates and cutlery. Despite a memorable three days' worth of burgers and french fries, paper bags and takeout cartons weren't really her employer's scene. The Luthor lunchbox was always a study in gourmet cuisine.

"Don't even think about it," he instructed, drizzling sauce over the two platefuls of something Dilys was too distraught to identify. "Luthors don't take kindly to losing brilliant employees."

Whatever she might have stuttered in reply was erased by the shock when Lex grabbed the back of her seat and wheeled her into place before one of the plates. He sauntered to his seat and picked up his fork.

_A perfectly everyday occurrence,_ Dilys instructed herself. _Sort of. Right._

They ate in not quite as comfortable a silence as usual, though one would never have been able to tell by just looking at Lex. The food was exquisite, as usual. As usual, Dilys cleaned up, as usual. The routine of stacking the china and aligning utensils into their slots was comforting.

"Just think of it as one of those undergrad road-trips you always found an excuse to miss out on."

She looked up briefly from her task. Leant back with hands behind his head, Lex was a study in nonchalance.

"Rattling around in a second-hand car, food poisoning, fighting mobs of tourist for trashy souvenirs? Okay, my youth was truly deprived."

"Such low expectations, D? My cars only ever have one owner, and I happen to have access to places that will leave a person speechless with wonder."

Dilys almost gaped at the intensity with which he was regarding her, then reminded herself that the man had always been the consummate flirt. Besides, nothing in his words supported the invitation in his eyes. She managed an evenly spoken, if belated, "A speechless Lex Luthor? Must be well worth the admission fee."

The curve of his mouth was strangely satisfied. "There are times when words become unnecessary."

Inexplicably embarrassed, Dilys finished covering the lunch container and ducked back to that which she spent most of her waking hours staring at. Unfortunately the whirling mess in her brain proved no more conductive to work than it had been this morning, or the day before, or the day before, etcetera.

"Can't concentrate?"

Belatedly, Dilys recalled that, whatever the gifts he may have come bearing, the man breathing over her shoulder was still her boss. "It's all that fresh air and sunshine and rollicking adventure. Didn't you know it's counter-indicated for the productivity of lab rats?"

"I'll make a note in my copy of 'Becoming a Heartless Luthor'." But he went back to his seat and began pulling documents out of his briefcase, spreading them across the table as he was wont.

Good example only made Dilys feel guilty about all the work she was not accomplishing. And, still, her mind refused to be coaxed.

Older, check. Out-of-depth and feeling blindly, check. Addicted to mystery overdose, check. Insomniac, two checks. Wiser, question mark.

A smooth tenor made her jump. "So, have the Kents warned you yet about big bad billionaires and their shady intentions?"


	9. Epilogue

**Nascence -- Epilogue**

People often remarked on how strange an existence it was, the close friendship between rising business mogul Lex Luthor and high-school farmboy Clark Kent. The man himself could have told them: it was the least unusual aspect of his association with the boy. Lex rarely bothered, but when he wanted a person as a friend, the only thing that stood between intent and reality was time. And money was just one tool in his arsenal, albeit a most useful one.

Of course, Lex's reticence not been threatened by a more profound bout of insanity than recently, and he never gave out trade secrets.

So there had grown and flourished a friendship between playboy and savior. They had long since moved past the stage where one felt that he needed an excuse to initiate a heart-to-maybe-heart with the other; yet it seemed that lately Clark had reverted to inspecting imaginary flecks of dirt on the fruits he was delivering. The teenager obviously felt residual guilt over not being the knight in flannel, not this time. If Clark had not been Lex's friend, the billionaire would have felt amused about the offending of those delicate superhero sensibilities.

He might have tucked away a smile or two, anyways.

"I'm sure you've rubbed those apples enough to wax them without shellac, Clark," Lex drawled from a comfortable sprawl in his office chair. His father might insist on seats that made a rigidly upright posture less painful than reclining, but he knew better that comfort meant less distraction. He leaned a little more deeply into the cushion before continuing, "What is it that you really want to discuss?"

"Well," Clark dithered while developing an unprecedented interest in rosewood paneling. "I, that is, we've been, uh, wondering about Dr. Chase."

Pale eyebrows rose. "Mr. Kent's not about to barge in, demanding to know my intentions towards Dilys, is he?"

"What? No, of course not! We're all just a little curious about your... relationship with her, Lex. She must be an old friend?"

"Mutual acquaintance in highschool. We both went to Princeton, but Dilys was there years before me, and working on her doctorates by the time I began my degree." A smirk twisted his lips at the slight awe that flitted across the boy's expressive face. "Let's just say she didn't get out much. We weren't much more than passing faces."

Clark shook his head. "I know you don't remember, but she did an awfully brave thing helping you get away. I'm sorry it didn't work out, though I'm sure she tried her best. The way she insisted on it, though? You don't do that for a 'passing face'."

"Except if you're Clark Kent."

Size-fourteen boots shuffled. "That's different. Dr. Chase is a--"

Lex raised his brows until the scrunch-lines on his forehead were visible.

Clark coughed awkwardness.

"Woman?" Lex supplied. "Scientist? Luthor employee?"

"Hey, I get plenty about women's lib from Chloe." Clark raised his hands in warding. "And I'm not even going to touch the other two with a hazmat suit on."

"Good choice." Lex took a lazy swig of TyNant. "Now, ready to tell me what's really bothering you, Clark?"

Sky-blue eyes -- so different from his own that they might as well have been a different color -- startled, then skittered away sheepishly. The confession did not take long to emerge: "Lana got hurt because of what I asked her to do."

_To help you,_ was the unspoken connection.

Lex leaned forward, studying the boy over steepled fingers. "People don't become heroes because they're indestructible, Clark. Courage only means something if there are corresponding stakes."

"Lana could have died! I can't let her go through that again."

"Because of how it makes you feel."

"Yes! No! This is about Lana, her safety. Not me."

"Isn't it?"

Clark stared as if he had just discovered that Lex came from another planet. "So you'd willingly let someone you care about put themselves in danger? Like" -- he paused, obviously searching for an appropriate insert -- "like Dylis?"

Lex knew that his face remained impassive. He had, after all, practiced it in the company of the shrewdest judges of character. Clark Kent, for all his raw power, lacked and would likely never develop that kind of finesse. He answered more honestly than the younger man could know: "If that is what it takes."

Clark shook his head again, this time disapprovingly. "Sometimes Lex, I just can't understand you." He sighed and stood up. "Well, I'd better be going. Mom will have dinner on the table soon."

The young billionaire watched the door to his office swing to close. To the empty room: "Then it's a good thing you're not playing for the prize that I am, Clark."

* * *

At double-speed, the motions of the two principals were comically zippy. The ponytail bobbed frenetically as the female walked past an ocean of shoulders. The view blinked into a different perspective, a patch-in to another camera's report. The male and female paused for a moment, then migrated to the nearby easel. To encore, the female fled, ridiculously stumbling backwards for her first few steps. 

_If you must retreat, then never let it be known,_ Lionel Luthor had drilled into his firstborn's recalcitrant head. The young woman in the silent video had obviously never benefited from such upbringing.

Dilys Chase, PhD. Physics and Mathematics. Scientific prodigy. Princeton graduate. LexCorp employee.

A manicured finger jabbed a key on the sleek black laptop. The video replayed.

The data his investigators had dug up on the girl was extensive, at least up to a couple of years ago. Shortly after she had started to work for LexCorp, though, there had been no papers about or by Dilys Chase. It wasn't due to cover-ups or disappeared information. By all accounts, she had simply worked quietly on whatever project Lex had in the works, almost in isolation except for a very few other LexCorp scientists. Lionel had been grudgingly impressed that the compact research facility she worked in had been built over very little time and with much discretion -- and all within a scant few miles of the Luthor mansion. The physicist's quietude was another thing entirely; most academics have compulsive needs to shout their soapboxes for the rest of the elite. Dilys' apparent contentment was either extreme lack of ambition... or Lex was being played the fool again by another, this time not-so-beautiful, female. The only thing that kept Lionel from defaulting to the latter was the girl's dowdy appearance. She was nowhere near the type his son usually went for, nor was she far enough from stereotype to use the novelty factor.

The video replayed for the umpteenth time.

It was clear, from the more than generous contract and working conditions, that the research the scientist was doing was crucial to Lex's schemes. But what Lionel burned to know was, what did Dilys Chase mean to his son on a personal level? She had been present near the end of the boy's recklessly rebellious phase, but their interaction had been minimal. Up to that period, i.e. before Lex had cultivated the resources to blur spying efforts, Lionel assigned high verisimilitude to the information he had on the girl. Everything after that was scanty and suspect.

So why the near-daily visits to her lab, all scheduled conveniently around a meal time (lunch, dinner)? They weren't assignations, not when according to Dilys' (LexCorp-mandated) doctor, the girl lived more chastely than a nun. Lex's taste also tended towards darker, handsomer, more sophisticated women.

A frown crossed the conglomerate giant's face, and he hit the replay key with unnecessary force. This time the video ran at normal speed, unmuted so that the digitally-enhanced lines spoke into the quiet office.

What was the secret written in their verbal sparring?

-----:-::-::: _The End_ :::-::-:-----

* * *

**Author's Note**

Yes, there are several deliberate hints for at least one sequel. There is also a particular conclusion that I would like to reach at the end of these hypothetical "episodes". However, I will hold off on any actual work pending on how this first is received.


End file.
